t
1
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES
GASTON VUILLIER
THE
FORGOTTEN ISLES
IMPRESSIONS OF TRAVEL IN THE
BALEARIC ISLES, CORSICA
SARDINIA
Rendered mio English by
FREDERIC BRETON
AUTHOR OF "the TRESPASSES OF TWO," " GOD FORSAKEN,'" "A HEROINE-
IN HOMESPUN," ETC.
WITH 167 ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR
r'f> , o :>
LONDON
HUTCHINSON & CO.
34, PATERNOSTER ROW
1896
^A'\
A^
PRINTED BY
HAZELL, WATSON, AND VINEY, LD.
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.
TO THE READER
/^A^ the day after leaving Marseilles, Algiers, or Oran, the traveller
^^ by sea often perceives on the horizon the cloudy outline of certain
dim, mysterious islands — they are Majorca and Minorca. Further
ofi, against a pale, diaphanous sky, he can distinguish the snowy
peaks of Corsica, or follow with his eye the long, monotonous un-
dulations of the coast of Sardinia.
In all probability, the traveller's knowledge of the Balearic
Isles does not go beyond zvhat he learnt at school He remembers,
perhaps, that the Romajt armies recruited slingers in the Balearic
Islands, or that the Arab conquerors of the archipelago brought with
them the secret, long since lost, of manufacturing a rare kind of
pottery of blended colours — of gold, azure, and flame. He knows also
that kings reigned at Majorca, and that the most Christian people
of Aragon rescued the islands from Mussulman hands.
Corsica perhaps is more familiar, and the wild beauty of its
scenery is linked with stories of blood-feuds and adventures with
bandits. But he knows absolutely nothing of Sardinia, an abandoned
land, with which even its Italian masters are unacquainted. Yet a
visit to these FORGOTTEN ISLES is a revelation.
Palma can show marvels of art and superb monu^nents, while
the grandeur of the sierras and barrancos, tJu friendliness and
simplicity of the people, and the soft, equable climate, render a
jouimey through Majorca a dream of enchantment.
Minorca is less beautiful, but it still preserves interesting traces
of the Aragonese and Catalans.
Iviza and Formentera, the remaining islands of t/ie group, sleep
as they have slept for five hundred years, cradled by the guttural
.^ , m m r%. I '
VI TO THE READER.
psalmody inherited from the Moors, and only waking to love or to
draw tlie knife.
In Corsica, tJie impression is different. In the immensity of its
forests, the solitary traveller still Jiears the lamenti of bygone
generations and shivers with the pity of death, or crosses the moor
in peril of robbers ; and, in tJu cloud-swept solitude of the heights,
seats himself at the humble hearth of soothsaying shepherds, poets
of tJu peaks, who recite Tasso and Ariosto to the accompaniment of
the pastoral ijistruments played by shepherds and rhapsodists from the
remotest antiquity.
To visit Sardinia is to turn back the pages of history. Here
the Middle Ages are revived ; the costumes of other days have pre-
served their pristine beauty, and the black coat of the nineteenth century
brushes familiarly against the velvet doublet of the fifteenth.
This introduction will suffice for the following record of a
journey to these FORGOTTEN I SEES, whose names are so familiar,
but whose features are so unknown.
CONTENTS
part !♦
THE BALEARIC ISLES.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
A Night at Sea. — Palma de Mallorca. — San Alfonso. — The Ayunta-
mtenio.—Yisit to the Corpse of a King. — The Cathedral.— Churches
of San Francisco and of Monte Sion.— Recollections of Raymond
Lully. — The Lonja.— The Climate.— The Moncades. — Bellver. —
Raxa. — Majorcan Houses 3
CHAPTER H.
The Giant Olives. — The Carthusian Monastery of Valldemosa. — Souvenirs
of George Sand and Chopin. — Miramar. — An Enchanted Coast. —
The Garden of the Hesperides. — SoUer . . . . . 2y
CHAPTER HI.
From Palma to Pollensa. — Yuca and its Majolica Ware. — Pollensa. —
The CamJ>o Santo. — Don Sebastian. — Majorcan Dances and Mala-
guenas. — The Sanctuary of Lluch ....... 4^
CHAPTER IV.
Manacor. — The Caverns of the Dragon. — The Black Lake. — Lasciate
ogni speranza.— 'Lost in the Darkness. — An Enchanted Lake. —
The Caverns of Arta . 5^
viii CONTENTS.
CHAPTER V.
PAGE
A City of Tombs. — Port Mahon. — A White City. — Serenades. — Christmas
Celebration.— Ancient Customs. — Monte Toro. — The Talayots. — The
Chafers of the Angelus.— The Musical Cobblers J^
CHAPTER VI.
The Alcade of Ferrarias. — The Distorted Trees. — The Barranco of
Algendar. — A Night at Subervei. — Ciudadella. — The Breath of the
Devil. — Return to Majorca. — Cabrera . ... . . . 9^
CHAPTER VH.
The yayme Segundo. — The City of Iviza. — The Women of Iviza. — The
Aguadores. — The Pescadores. — A Queer Fisherman.— Country
Remedies 109
CHAPTER Vni.
San Antonio. — A Fortified Church. ^ — Primitive Music. — Santa Eulalia. —
Courtship and Gunpowder. — A Night Cry. — Love and Death. — El
joch del Gall 123
part II.
CORSICA.
CHAPTER I.
Ajaccio. — Memories of Napoleon. — Suarella. — Sampiero's Wife. — ^A Wild
Drive. — Woodland Scenery. — The Forsaken Inn 1 43
CHAPTER II.
At Zicavo. — The Cascade of Camera. — Strange Superstitions. — Vampires
and Demon Hounds. — Forest Fires. — Schiopello, stiletto^ strada. —
The Vendetta. — The Vocero.—K Dance of Death . . . 1 56
CONTENTS. IX
CHAPTER III.
PAGE
Pastoral Life. — A Strange Encounter in the Forest. — Shepherd-lore. —
Ossianic Verse. — The Ghastly Horseman. — On the Incudine. — A
Meeting with Bandits. — Vengeance and Hospitality . . . .176
CHAPTER IV.
A Witch. — The Light of Busso. — Another Brigand Story. — Corte. — The
Genoese. — Ghisoni.— The Christe Eleison. — The Passes of Inzecca.
— Eternal Oblivion 194
CHAPTER V.
A Wild Gorge.— The Bandit and his Friend.—Niolo.— A Village of
Giants. — A Blood-feud.— Woman in Corsica. — Along the West
Coast. — Evisa.— The Spelunca.— The Forest of Aitone.— A Greek
Village.— The Pope and the Brigand 209
CHAPTER VL
Sartene.— Marriage Customs. — Good Friday Procession. — The Catenaccio
and the Black Penitents.— A Romantic Vendetta.— l\i^ Tarantula.
—Bonifacio.— The Straits.— The Lion of Roccapina .... 236
©art III.
SARDINIA,
CHAPTER I.
First Impressions. — Porto Torres and Roman Remains. — San Gavino. —
Sassari.— A Town of Contrasts.— The Zaj)^atori.—C3xr\\v2\ Time.
—The Battle of the Standard.— Old Monasteries.— Sennori . . 261
CHAPTER II.
Sorso.— A Classical Picture.— Fevers.— An Allegory on the Road.— Osilo.
—The Manor of Malespina.— A Sardinian Vendetta.— The Tragic
Story of Giovanni 2oo
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER III.
PAGE
The Spanish City of Alghero. — The " Snail's Staircase." — Tempio and the
Limbara Mountains.— Torralba and the Nuraghi. — Across Sar-
dinia.— Oristano. — The City of Tharros. — A Sardinian Judith.
— Cagliari. — The Pertinacious Porters 3^3
CHAPTER IV.
Cagliari. — The Vanity of Achievement. — The Gate of the Elephant. — The
Roman Amphitheatre. — Divination and Sorcery. — The Cathedral. —
Some Monuments and their Moral. — The Castle of Ugolin. — In
the Campidano. — An Arcadian Festival. — Religious Services and
Processions. — The Migrations of a Saint. — The Philosophic Donkey.
— Peasants' Dresses. — Tunny-fishing 3^0
CHAPTER V.
La Barbagia. — The Plain of Sarcidano.— ^Belvi. — An Artist's Dream. —
The Douro-Douro. — Sardinian Music. — The Grassazione.—^'sX^^
and Raiders. — A Heroic Girl. — The Major's Adventure. — Up the
Gennargentu. — Snow and Mist. — Sardinian Women. — Evening at
Aritzo 342
CHAPTER VI.
Desulo. — Sardinian Poetry. — Furia-furia. — Complicated Cookery. — The
Fair of San Mauro.-^ Wooing by Proxy. — " Waking" the Dead. — The
Birth of a Firstborn. — The Flumendosa. — The Wild East Coast. —
The King of Tavolara.— Fever. — Farewell, Sardinia .... '^fi'J
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Palma de Mallorca
3
A Tamborero
8
Night Visit to the Tomb of King Jayme
II
Doorway of the Church of Monte Sion
12
Tomb of Raymond Lully
13
Doorway of San Francisco...
i6
Interior of the Lonja
17
The Castle of Bellver and the Terreno
19
Staircase of Raxa ... ... ...
22
Moorish Bath-house
25
Landscape at Soller
27
At Miramar
27
Cartuja de Valldemosa
29
The North Coast
31
The Creek of I'Estaca
34
The Sea Road
35
Work-girl of Miramar
36
A Peasant and his Wife
37
The Hermit of Miramar
40
The " Rebosillo "
41
Roman Bridge at Pollensa
.'
42
At the " Wall of the Dead "
45
Street in Pollensa
48
Cascade of the Cala de Molins
49
A Majorcan " Jota "
51
Water-carriers at Pollensa
55
xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
At Our Lady's Shrine 57
Entrance to the Caves of the Dragon 58
A Spinster of the " Predio " 58
The " Palmera' 61
Las Aranas 63
The "Lago Negro" 64
Cueva del Descanso de los Extra viados 67
Lago de Las Delicias 69
Entrance to the Caves of Arta 73
Sala de las Columnas 75
Sea Entrance to the Dragon Caves 76
Entrance to Port Mahon ... 11
Roman Gateway at Alcudia ... ... 7^
The Gate of Barbarossa Bi
Wine-carrier of Mahon 82
El Carro dels Xuchs 82
AtTalayot 87
Taula of Tilati di Dalt ... 88
An Oratory ... 90
The Road to B6ni Du^nis 91
At the Barranco of Algendar 91
At Subervei ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 93
The Night Ride to Subervei 97
Rio of the " Barranco " of Algendar 99
A Wedding Party ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 101
At Ciudadella - ... ... 104
Iviza 109
Vincenta iii
" Ventana Comasema " ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 112
The Old Curia 113
The Aguadores ... 115
A Street in the Maritime Quarter •.. ... 117
The Old Water-carrier 119
Fisherman mending his Net 120
The Notary 121
Of Uncertain Temper ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 122
Fortified Church of San Antonio 123
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
XIU
A"Cantado"
123
Returning from Mass at Santa Eiilalia .. .
127
An Ardent Avowal ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
129
Courtship
134
"El JochdelGall"
135
A Fortified Farm
.. 138
Ajaccio
142
Monte Cinto from Calacuccia
H3
La Maison Bonaparte
143
The Place du Diamant at Ajaccio
144
Tower of " Capitello "
146
Fishermen Drawing their Nets
149
Suarella
151
House of Vanina d'Ornano
154
Sheepfolds at Palaghiole ...
.. 156
The Cascade of Camera
••• 159
GirlofZicavo
... 162
Giant Chestnuts
.. 165
The Widow
.. 169
AManofZicavo
171
The Pigs of Zicavo ...
175
Sheepfolds of Frauletto ...
.. 176
Shepherds' Huts
180
Shepherds on the Move
181
A Shepherd
.. 183
The Ghastly Horseman ... ... ... ...
.. 185
The Gorge of the Taravo ...
.. 189
Going to the Well
192
The Ravine of Bocognano
.. 194
The Mill of Niolo
194
The Witch
196
The Gaffori House ...
200
The "Christe Eleison"
204
The Pass of Inzecca
205
Evisa ...
209
Woman spinning at Calasima
213
A Giant of Calasima
.. 215
XIV
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Corsican Woman and Girl
Primitive Mill
In the Forest of Aitone
The Calanches by Moonlight
The Pope of Cargesi
An old Greek of Cargesi
Sartene
\Vhite Penitents
The Dolmen of Cauria
Penitents and Monks
The Begging Friar
Bonifacio
Ancient Gateway
The Lion of Roccapina
Roman Bridge at Porto Torres ,.
A Sardinian of " Logudoro '
Sardinians of Porto Torres
Porch of San Gavino
Zappatori
Water-carrier at Sassari
The Rosello Fountain at Sassari ..
In Gala Costume
Head-dress of Sennori Women
Basket-making ...
On the Threshold
Among the Limbara Mountains ..
Old Man of Sorso
Washing Linen at Osilo
Young Woman of Osilo
The City of Alghero
Ancient Aragonese Tower
The Valley of Ossi
Contadina of Ploaghe
Nuraghe of Torralba
Woman of Quartu
Slopes of the Gennargentu
Gate of the Elephant
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
XV
Roman Amphitheatre
Pisan Gateway
Car of San Efisio
PAGE
••• 325
... 2^2^
•• 334
Bride and Bridegroom at Pirri
A Panattara
•• 337
••• 339
A Rigattiere ...
At the Foot of the Gennargentu
Aritzo
The Mastrucca
... 341
... 342
• • 343
- 345
Sardinian Shepherd
Street in Belvi
346
. ... 348
Balcony at Aritzo
A Widow
•• 349
... 351
Group at Aritzo
Warping the Woof
Ancient Cart with Spokeless Wheels
••• 353
. ... 365
. ... 367
Women at Atzara ... ...
. ... 369
The Church of San Mauro
• - m
A Booth at the Fair of San Mauro
■■■ 377
A Seller of Homespun
Sunday Morning at Desulo
Man of the East Coast
•-. 379
• -. 383
.- 385
Woman of Sarrule ...
. ... 387
Young Man of Sarrule
... 389
A Player of the Launedda
390
part I.
THE BALEARIC ISLES.
Palma de Mallorca.
CHAPTER I.
A Night at Sea. — Palma de Mallorca. — San Alfonso. — The Ayuntamiento. — Visit to
the Corpse of a King. — The Cathedral. — Churches of San Francisco and ot Monte
Sion, — Recollections of Raymond Lully. — The Lonja. — The Climate — The
Moncades. — Bellver, — Raxa. — Majorcan Houses.
OFF Barcelona, on board the Cataluna^
5 p.m. Wind south-east ; sea fresh.
The sun was setting in crimson clouds.
Its rays still lit up the city, reddening the
roofs of the buildings, gilding the topmasts of
the vessels moored in the stagnant waters of
the harbour, and illuminating the octagonal
towers of Santa Maria del Mar and the gigan-
tic figure of Christopher Columbus, whose
statue, on the top of a tall column, commands
the bay and points to the infinite ocean.
Night fell as we gained the open sea,
and, leaning on the stern rails of the vessel,
I followed with my eyes the phosphorescent
track in our wake, which gradually faded
away in the shadow of the Spanish coast,
3
4 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
where a faint reflection in the sky indicated the position of the city
which we had just left.
Shortly before dawn, after a slight tossing in the Gulf, I opened
my eyes, and through the porthole of my cabin saw the indented
coastline of the island of Majorca, Balearis Major, as it was called
by the Romans. The sun had not yet risen, and the lofty silhouette
of the island was vaguely outlined against a pale sky, in which the
stars still shone with a mellow but fading brilliancy. One of the
sailors on deck, whither I soon ascended, told me that we should
reach Palma in three hours' time. Shortly afterwards, threading the
narrow channel separating the rock from the land, a passage appa-
rently enclosed on all sides by tall cliffs, we passed the lighthouse
surmounting the rocky islet of Dragonera. As the daylight grew,
the features of the coast began to be distinguishable, and at the
far end of the oddly shaped little creeks between the jutting head-
lands clusters of cabins, scarcely differing in colour from the arid
rocks around them, marked the site of some small fishing hamlet.
This channel, known as the Friou, is perilous to navigation, being as
thickly sown with reefs as the entrance to a modern naval harbour
is with torpedoes. In fact, the whole of the south-western coast
which we were following presents an iron front to the sea, bristling
with bayonets of rock, and so precipitous that the mariner cast ashore
would stand but little chance of scaling his way to safety.
The sun rose just as we entered Palma Bay, and its rays fell
full on the capital of Majorca, which with its waving palm trees and
Arab monuments has an aspect more Eastern than European, except
for the number of windmills lining the coast, and recalling familiar
landscapes in Holland or south-eastern England.
Naturally enough, the arrival of the steamer, el vapor, is one
of the great events of Palma, and the quays were alive with
people. A shoal of small boats gathered round our vessel, while,
to the imminent risk but apparent indifference of the crowd on
shore, numbers of galeras, small carriages drawn by mules or
horses, galloped up and down for no motive seemingly save the
bravado of display. On every side were light, colour, and motion.
A FEMALE TOREADOR. 5
a vibration of sheer life under a spotless blue sky in a city bathed
in sunlight.
As soon as I had disembarked, one of the aforesaid galeras
quickly conveyed me to ih^fojida.
It seemed but a few days since I had left the dull landscapes
of the north under the sombre sky of chill October, and here, at
Palma, I found the warmth and brilliance of a bright summer's day.
I eagerly left my room as soon as possible, therefore, to enjoy the
bright freshness of the morning and see a little of the interior of
the town.
The narrow streets, built apparently with the express purpose
of retaining the heat, were very animated. It was Sunday. The
bells were ringing, and the Majorcans, men and women, high and
low, with a not inconsiderable sprinkling of soldiers, were thronging
the streets, most of them on their way to mass. The pavements
were strewn with foliage, the houses were beflagged, red hangings
fringed with gold were displayed from the windows, and illuminations
were being prepared for the evening.
It was the festival of San Alfonso Rodriguez.
But a placard on the walls arrested my attention : —
PLAZA DE TOROS DE PALMA.
GRAN CORRIDA
LA SENORA MAZANTINA CAPEARA, BANDERILLARA
Y MATArA UNO DE LOS TOROS.
The art of varying pleasure is well understood at Palma, and a
bull-fight is sandwiched in between the morning mass and the
evening procession.
Towards three o'clock in the afteraoon I took my seat on one
of the stone tiers of an immense circus, a unit in an impatient crowd
as vehement of expression as any gallery of " gods " in a transpontine
theatre. Higher up, in the more select places, the waving of innu-
merable fans, coloured and gilded, dazzled the eye like the shimmer
of insects' wings.
6 ' THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
After the usual preliminaries, the gates of the toril opened, the
bull appeared, and a young woman, the Sefiora Mazantina, as
announced in the programme, came to play the perilous part of
toreador.
Despite its novelty, I confess that the spectacle which followed
aroused my indignation, for it was indeed barbarous and repulsive.
The crowd, intoxicated by the sight of blood, placed no restraint on
its excitement, gesticulating and yelling like wild beasts, while the
poor animal in the arena bellowed with pain as each new banderillera
pierced its quivering flesh. The woman, who was dressed in spangled
tights, showed a pale face under her raven-black hair, but she
assumed an air of bravado which hardly concealed her nervousness,
and finally mounting a horse, rose up gallantly in her stirrups to
pierce the maddened bull with her lance.
After three bulls had been despatched by the espada, and their
carcasses dragged by mules round the arena amid the plaudits of
the spectators, a fourth and last animal entered on the scene. The
usual play having been made with banderilleras and lances, the
Sefiora Mazantina advanced to give the coup de grace. But the short
sword, held by a trembling hand, slipped to one side. The bull fell
upon the unfortunate woman, and, in the twinkling of an eye, both
were rolling in the dust.
I did not wait to see more, and hastily left the building. I
learned afterwards, however, that the sefiora, though carried off the
arena in a swoon, had not been seriously injured, the dying bull not
having had sufficient strength to do much harm.
As I left the Plaza de Toros, the bells of all the chapels and
churches of Palma (the number is said to be thirty-six) were ringing
their loudest to announce that the procession in honour of San
Alfonso Rodriguez had left the church. I mingled with the crowd,
most of whom had been spectators at the barbarous spectacle of the
bull-fight, and marvelled at the tortuousness of the human conscience
to see these people devoutly fall on their keees and cross themselves
in adoration of the God whose laws of kindness they professed
to observe.
PROCESSION OF SAN ALFONSO. 7
The street at this moment was a wonderful avenue of purple,
verdure, and gold, encumbered with improvised side altars bearing
pictures of the saint, gross caricatures probably in San Alfonso's own
estimation, but devoutly surrounded by lamps and candles, and
enframed in green branches. The flags and hangings were more
numerous than in the morning, the windows were curtained with
coloured cloths, and the doorways were hidden by sheaves of palms,
while underfoot was a thick noiseless carpet of aromatic plants.
The sound of chanting and blasts of trumpets heralded the approach
of the procession, and the people formed in line on either side of
the thoroughfare. Immense images of saints loomed up above the
heads of the grave mace-bearers of the municipality who preceded
the cortege. These images, of unlikely anatomy and consumptive
complexions, were carried on stands borne on the shoulders of four
men. Several held in their hands religious emblems, but most bore
a nosegay of artificial flowers.
The crowning figure was that of San Alfonso himself, modelled
lifesize in wax. He was carried in a crystal chair, but was more
impressive than attractive. The face was of a corpse-like hue, and
the thin ivory-coloured hands were piously folded on his breast.
The pretty and coquettish Majorca girls, with rosaries in their hands,
crossed themselves, as the image passed, with an air of compunction
somewhat out of keeping with the sidelong glances they bestowed
on the young men in their vicinity.
The procession over — and it grew monotonous before the bishop
brought up the rear — I was not sorry to return to my hotel and end
a well-filled day with a good dinner and a better sleep.
On the next morning I had the good fortune to fall in with an
acquaintance who offered to be my guide to the sights of Palma.
I could not have had a better conductor. Senor Selfar^s was interested
in every form of art, and no one could have been a better judge
of what was likely to please an artist.
We went together to the Ayunta?niento or Casa Consistorial, passing
on our way a shop where was exposed for sale the flesh of the bulls
killed on the previous day. The meat certainly did not look
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
appetising, but was eagerly purchased by the poor, to whom no doubt
its low price compensated for any deficiency in quality.
The Ayuntamiento (Town Hall) is a fine building, recalling the
Florentine style by the extraordinary prominence of the roof, which
projects nearly nine feet, and is sup-
ported by richly carved buttresses and
caryatides, who seem to bear their
burden with pain and difficulty. The
general style of the architecture is that
of the sixteenth century. In the in-
terior the sessions-hall is the only apart-
ment of any size. Above the seat of the
President there hangs a portrait of the
Queen Regent Christina, by a native
artist, and along the wall a series of
paintings of illustrious men of Majorca,
among whom, by a contemporary artist,
figures the King Don Jayrne /., el Con-
quistador^ who is said to have taken
prisoner a hundred Moors with his own
hand, this being merely a casual incident
in a career of prowess. In a neigh-
bouring room there is a picture by
Van Dyck, The Martyrdom of Saint
Sebastian^ but I failed to see the portrait
of Hannibal, which I was afterwards
told hung in the same gallery. The
Majorcans relate that Hamilcar, on his
way from Africa to Catalonia, stopped
at one of the promontories of the island,
and that it was there, near a temple dedicated to Lucina, that his
wife gave birth to Hannibal. As we came out of the Ayuntamiento
we heard a formidable rumbling of drums.
" Those," said my guide, " are los tamboreros de la sala (drummers
of the municipality)."
A'JSM;
A Tamborero.
SWEETMEAT ROSARIES. 9
They fulfil the function of public criers, march at the head of all
civic processions, and announce the decisions of the Ayuntamiento.
On January Tst in each year they perform serenades, assembling
before the houses of all the leading inhabitants, and persevering
in a formidable rub-dubbing without interruption until they receive
a contribution. Unhappy, indeed, those families who delay to pay
tribute, for the noise becomes so deafening that they are compelled
to disburse with all speed, if they wish to preserve the drums of
their ears intact.
Formerly the town possessed the helmet, saddle, and- standard of
Don Jayme I.
On December 31st, the anniversary of the great victory which
ended the dominion of the Moors, the portrait of el Conquistador was
formerly exposed on a dai's in front of the Ayuntamiento, surmounted
by the standard, and surrounded by the framed portraits of eminent
men of Majorca. At night this exhibition was illuminated. On
the same day was also displayed an immense stuffed lizard, which,
according to tradition, once ravaged the island, depopulating the
villages near the marshes, which served as its base of operations.
The remains of this terrible saurian disappeared some years ago,
and the standard, helmet, and saddle of Don Jayme were transferred
in 1830 to the arsenal at Madrid. The staff of the standard still
remains at Palma, however, and on the last day of each year is
decorated with leaves and ribbons, and solemnly conveyed by the
magistrates to the Cathedral, where its arrival is announced by a
salvo of artillery, and the playing of the Royal March by the band,
while the clergy of all the united parishes intone a Te Deum.
Since my arrival, I had noticed with not a little curiosity all
the women and girls of the place busily occupied in threading
rosary beads on small cords. These beads, of enormous size and
various colours, were composed of sugar or crystallised fruit. It
appears that it is the custom in Palma and other towns and villages
of the island to give children one of these sweetmeat chaplets on
All Saints' Day, with the object, no doubt, of initiating them into the
pious practice of the rosary. I wanted to give one of these sweet and
lO THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
sacred comestibles to little Francisco, the son of my friend Sellares,
but the father cried out aghast, the little fellow having in the previous
year devoured the whole rosary in one day, and suffered violent
internal pains in consequence. Some days afterwards I saw the
entire juvenile population of PoUensa, girls and boys, marching
along with their rosaries trailing to the ground, proud of possessing
such fine ornaments, which they every now and then lifted to their
lips for a suck on the sly.
" I will show you something curious in the Cathedral to-night,"
said my friend Sellares to me one day.
On first entering the harbour I had been struck by the imposing
aspect of the edifice as seen from the sea, and had frequently
expressed a wish to visit it by day. But on one pretext or another
my friend had always postponed the matter, and now when we did
go it was by night. The great nave looked immense irj the obscurity.
A few Majorcan women were kneeling on the flag-stones and telling
their beads, pausing at the end of each decade to fan themselves.
Two or three men also were praying ferv-ently. Far off in the
lighted chancel the Cathedral chapter was chanting compline.
Presently the chanting ceased, the tapers were gradually extinguished,
and the canons, departing in silence, disappeared one by one in the
shadows of the lofty pillars. Some one approached us and whispered
" Come ! "
We obeyed the summons. A priest and a friend of Sellares
joined us. Torches were kindled, and presently we found ourselves
in front of a sarcophagus of black marble surmounted by a sceptre,
a sword, and a royal crown. On one side of the monument I saw
graven in the marble the words, " Here rests the body of the Most
Serene Sefior Don Jayme of Aragon II., King of Mallorca, who
deserves the most pious and praiseworthy memory in our annals.
Died the 28th of May, 13 11."
" Open," said Sellares in a low voice. A key was inserted in the
marble, one of the sides rolled back, and disclosed a coffin, which the
assistants dragged out. The body of the king was under our eyes,
draped with ermine, the large mouth open, and the eye-sockets deeply
AT A ROYAL SEPULCHRE.
I I
sunken. Big drops of candle grease dropped by previous visitors
seemed like tears frozen on the rough face, as if the corpse were
aggrieved by the curiosity which disturbed its last repose. In the
light of the torches the crown sparkled and the sword flashed, as if
a few rays of glory still hovered over the remains of royalty. After
a few moments the coffin was pushed back into the tomb, the key
was turned, and we retraced our steps across the dark and silent
nave, till we saw the
stars in a deep purple
sky, and the white
houses of the town
silvered by the moon-
light.
I was not sorry
for the change. There
had been too stern a
moral of human mu-
tability in the spec-
tacle of the great
king, who once com-
manded these seas,
and whose power ex-
tended over the whole
of Aragon, now at
the mercy of the first
sacristan who chose
Isiight Visit to the Tomb of King Jayme.
to earn a few pence by exhibiting the poor remains to gratify the
curiosity of the tourist.
Some days later I again visited the Cathedral in the morning.
Its appearance was forbidding and gloomy, like that of all Spanish
cathedrals, and the only striking feature was the double row of
seven massive pillars supporting the roof The choir being in the
centre of the nave spoilt the perspective. Behind the high altar
an old altar-piece in carved wood was relegated to dust and darkness,
though in a perfect state of preservation. The carved statuettes of
12
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
■ Doorway of the Church of Monte Sion
saints on either side of the
centre-piece were painted and
gilt like the illuminations
in an old missal. When
money was required to
complete the church, the
nobles were given the
: privilege of graving their
escutcheons on the key-
stones of the vaulted
roof in consideration for
one hundred Majorcan
pounds, or on
i;: the roof of the
side aisles for
fifty pounds.
The revenue de-
rived from this
appeal to vanity
must have been
considerable, to
judge by the
number of such
coats-of-arms.
The edifice
was completed
in 1 60 1, four
hundred years
after its founda-
tion by Don
J ay me, e/ Con-
quistador^ in ful-
filment of a vow
made by him
to the Virgin
A POEM IN STONE.
13
during a severe storm which imperilled the safety of the fleet sent
to conquer the island.
In harmony of line and delicacy of execution nothing could
surpass the great doorway facing the sea. Gothic art, it has been
said, has never excelled this achievement in combining correctness
of proportion with freedom of expression. Statues, stone canopies,
chiselled like delicate em-
broidery, folded draperies,
garlands of delicate flowers,
capricious interlacing of ma-
son-work, festoons, columns,
foliage, figures of holy doctors,
all combine to make a mar-
vellous whole and produce a
masterpiece of artistry in stone.
It is unfortunate that it
has been found necessary to
wall up the doorway, owing
to the violence of the sea-
wind, which used to work
havoc in the church, blowing
down the pictures and over-
turning the sacred vessels.
Among the treasures of the
Cathedral reliquary are six
silver seven-branched candle-
sticks, the pediments of which
are in the form of a satyr. There are also a relic of the true Cross,
three thorns from the Crown of Christ, a piece of the tunic, portions
of the veil and chemise of the Virgin, and one of the arms of
St. Sebastian. These precious relics were brought to Palma in 1512
by an archdeacon of Rhodes, named Manual Suria.
Close to the Cathedral is the Palacio Real, a characteristic
building said to be partly of Roman and partly of Moorish con-
struction. It is surmounted by a Gothic angel facing the sea.
Tomb of Raymond LuUy.
14 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
Among the numerous churches of Palma special interest attaches
to San Francisco, in that it contains the tomb of the great Ramon
Lull (Raymond LuUy), the famous mystic, who was at once a
prolific writer, a theologian, a physician, and an architect. His tomb
is one of the most remarkable funeral monuments of the latest period
of Gothic architecture.
Raymond Lully was born at Palma in 1235. He soon displayed
a leaning to the profession of arms, and entered the service of the
Infante Don Jayme as a page. After a youth of wild dissipation,
his parents, in the hope of bridling his passions, persuaded him to
marry. His conduct, far from improving, however, became worse ;
and one Sunday he outraged all conventions by entering the church
of Saint Eulalia on horseback in order to see a lady of whom he was
enamoured.
Another of his adventures is worthy of record for the sake of its
savour of the poetry of pity and death. He was in love with a
young girl, and because of his love he became a chemist. The girl,
while avowing the return of his passion, resisted all his entreaties.
Not knowing the cause of her coldness, he redoubled his solicitations,
until she suddenly tore aside the vest covering her bosom, and
showed her breast eaten away by a cancer.
He, horrified, but not despairing, devoted himself to special
studies, and, so it is said, succeeded in discovering a cure for the
disease, but beyond that the legend does not go.
Later in life, however, like many another wild youth of the
Middle Ages, he strove to atone for his early wildness by penitence
and study. After selling his property and making provision for his
wife and children, he made pilgrimages to Montserrat and Santiago
de Compostella, and then withdrew to the summit of Mount Randa,
to devote himself to meditation and work. Here he wrote several
books, the fame of which caused him to be summoned by King
Jayme H., then at Montpellier, in order to teach Arabic, which he
had learned from one of his slaves, to thirteen Franciscan friars at
a new missionary college founded by the king at Miramar. From
here Raymond Lully went to Genoa to translate an Arabic work, and
MYSTICISM AND MIRACLE. I5
to Tunis to preach the Gospel and confute the Mahommedan doctors.
He visited Rome and then Paris, and was a missionary preacher in
the Levant and in Africa. Here he was finally stoned to death at
the gates of the town of Bougie by the Mussulman inhabitants.
The body was recovered by some Genoese fishermen, who intended
to take it back home with them. But when they thought they were
about to enter the port of Genoa, they found that they were in reality
off Majorca. They shaped a fresh course accordingly, but their boat,
arrested by a mysterious power, did not advance a cable's length in
despite of the favouring wind which filled the sails. Having landed
on the island they recounted the miracle, and ultimately interpreted
it as a sign that they were to deposit the body in its native soil.
The remains having been disembarked, they continued their voyage
without further obstacle. The monks of San Francisco having
claimed the body as belonging to their community, it was temporarily
interred with great pomp in the sacristy, and subsequently transferred
to the tomb where it now rests.
Such was the strange and singularly chequered career of the
great master of mysticism, for whom the inhabitants of the Balearic
Isles have almost as much veneration as for a canonised saint.
The nave of San Francisco is large and well proportioned, but
has been much spoiled by a so-called " restoration."
The convent of the same name adjacent to the church is the
largest in Palma, and formerly consisted of two cloisters occupied by
one hundred and fifty monks. Later in its history the building
became the residence of the political governor. It is now a prison ;
and when we entered the enclosure, some of Xht presidaros (prisoners)
were strolling about in groups smoking cigarettes, while others were
makings mats and brushes of broom. I was surprised at their
number, but Sellares hastened to inform me that they were all sent to
Palma from Spain, there being no malefactors in Majorca, just as
there are no ferocious animals or venomous reptiles. The traveller
can traverse the island by night or day in the wildest and most
savage districts, and not only will he be unmolested, but will every-
where receive the most hospitable welcome.
i6
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
Doorway of San Francisco.
In the lower part of
the town near the quays
stands a massive rect-
angular building, whose
walls are mirrored in
the calm water of the
harbour. It is the
Lonja (formerly the
Exchange). It
is described as
one of the finest
Gothic m o n u -
ments in Spain,
but externally,
except for its ec-
clesiastical win-
dows, it strikes
the average ob-
server as not
unlike a county
gaol. The inte-
rior, however, is
remarkable as
one of those
problems of ar-
chitectural
quaintness
which the artists
of the Middle
Ages loved to
display their
skill in solving,
setting themselves
difficulties for the
mere pleasure of
PALMA IN THE PAST.
17
overcoming them. The interior consists of a single hall of vast
proportions, the flat, vaulted roof of which is supported by six slight
columns, fluted spiral-wise. The hall is now used for the masked
balls during Carnival time, and can accommodate twelve thousand
persons without overcrowd-
ing. This alone testifies
to the extent of the ship-
ping and commerce of
Palma before the discovery
of America altered the
destinies of all the seaports
in Europe.
The Balearic Isles were
for a long time one of the
most flourishing commer-
cial centres of the world —
a prosperity which was due
neither to local industry
nor to the wealth of the
inhabitants, but to their
geographical position mid-
way between the coasts of
Africa, Italy, France, and
Spain.
Under the peaceful
reign of Don Jayme I. the
commerce of Majorca as-
sumed immense propor-
tion.s, and the port of
Palma was crowded with
vessels. In the fifteenth
Interior of the Lonja*
century the Genoese merchants were
so numerous that they had a special Exchange, and occupied a
special quarter of the town, now inhabited chiefly by the descend-
ants of Jewish converts to Christianity. In the archives of Madrid
are to be found sumptuary laws of that period which testify to the
2
1 8 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
luxury and opulence of the inhabitants. Majorca was one of the
great markets of Europe, and one of the chief centres of the Indian
and African trade. There was scarcely a noble family which did
not maintain at least one galley. But the discovery of the Cape
of Good Hope changed the route for Asiatic products, and the
expulsion of the Moors from Spain did much to ruin the prosperity
of the Balearic Isles.
Nowadays the commercial relations of the group do not extend
beyond the Mediterranean coasts of Spain, Africa, and France ; and
the principal exports consist merely of oil, almonds, oranges,
lemons, and capers, which go to Marseilles, wine to Cette, and pigs
and vegetables to Barcelona.
Majorca is the largest and much the most fertile of the islands.
The soil is so rich, the climate so soft, and the natural scenery so
beautiful, that the ancients called the group the Eudeinones, or Land
of Good Genii, and also the Aphrodisiades, or Islands of Love. The
population is relatively twice as dense as in Spain.
Palma, which contains over sixty thousand inhabitants, is said
to have been founded by Quintus Caecilius Metellus, surnamed
Balearicus. It is related that when he first attempted to land on
the coast, he was obliged to place an awning of skins over the deck
of each ship to protect his men from the projectiles of the slingers
of the island. All the old authors refer to the dexterity shown in
the use of the sling by the inhabitants. Dameto, a local historian^
wrote even as late as 173 1, that the address and skill displayed in
the use of this weapon were such that the leaden balls used as
projectiles melted in the air from the very violence with which they
were thrown !
The climate of Majorca is milder than that of Valencia, which
is in nearly the same latitude. At the same time, temperature varies
according to situation ; and on the mountains, which extend from
north-east to south-west along one side of the island, it is often
comparatively fresh when the plains are baking.
My friend Sellares sometimes said to me when he saw my
eagerness to visit the sights of the island, " When you've eaten four
A SEDATIVE PRESCRIPTION.
19
S, ^^^^^j:>
X
The Castle of Bellver and the Terreno.
or five enciinadas, you will begin to be in tune with Majorca. You
are still far too nervous and active. At Palma we always have
plenty of time ; we are never in a hurry, or, if we are, we hasten
slowly. We are always in good health, our existence passes without
effort, our wants are moderate, and we grow old after long enjoying-
the sunshine and the marvels of our isle."
The encimada, of whose sedative properties Sellares spoke so
highly, is a kind of dripping cake, generally served with chocolate.
I found them difficult of digestion, and I daresay they do tend to
intensify the physical and intellectual torpor already induced by
the climate. My stay in Majorca was not long enough to permit of
my enjoying the benefits of this native confection, and, not having
plenty of time, like the Majorcans, I begged Sellares to accompany
me to the famous pine tree of the Moncades, for which purpose I
hired a galera.
These carriages are very light and graceful. They are drawn
9
20 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
mostly by mules, and, whether climbing or descending hills, always
go at full speed.
After passing the quays, we followed a dusty road to Terreno,
a sort of seaside resort much affected by the townspeople during the
hot weather. Every house stands in its own garden, shaded by
the traditional fig tree and diversified with flowers. The town is
surrounded by a dense forest of Syrian pines, through which the
road ascends to the gloomy castle of Bellver, which I visited on the
following day. The sea-view from this point is very extensive, and
in clear weather the rock of Cabrera, of melancholy memory, is
visible on the horizon. Terreno is connected with Palma by a
tramway, and a man can have his sea bath in the morning, go into
business, and return home in the evening. He can even come back
for his midday siesta, for the journey into town only occupies a
•quarter of an hour.
After passing Terreno, which was deserted at this time of year
(November), we followed the coastline for a long distance. The
•sea was always with us, but here was none of the bleakness associated
with seaside landscapes in northern regions. The waves broke in
silver fringes on sandy , creeks, or, further out, washed in unbroken
blue round some projecting reef, but the rich vegetation grew almost
to the water's edge. The air was scented with wild rosemary,
cytisus, myrtle, and lavender, while heather plants of every tint of
rose and tall as garden shrubs waved their supple stems in the warm
sea-breeze.
After a two hours' drive the coachman drew up, got down from
his box, and with true southern politeness, hat in hand, requested
us to do him the favour of alighting.
Right in front of us was the famous pine of the Moncades, on
a stretch of link land bordered by the sea. It was here that Don
Jayme the Conqueror disembarked with his comrades in arms, and
on September 12th, 1229, first gave battle to the Infidels. It was
here, on the same day, that the Moncades, two brothers belonging to
an illustrious family, and lieutenants of the king, met with death and
undying honour. It was to commemorate this that the giant pine
THE CASTLE OF BELLVER. 21
was solemnly consecrated on May 5th, 1887, when a portion of the
ceremony consisted of the reading of the passage in the Chronicles
of Catalan describing the death of the two heroes. A full descrip-
tion of the strange but touching spectacle, when mass was said under
the open sky, with the sea for organ and choir, to a congregation
of peasants, poets, and artists, was given at the time in the Revue
Felibrienne.
On our return journey we followed a more inland road through
the forest on the shoulder of the mountain, and visited the chateau of
Bendinat, which belonged to the Count of Montenegro, The origin
of the name is worth recording. After the great battle in which the
Moncades fell, Don Nuno, a lieutenant, led the king, who had tasted
no food all day, to a country house, where his majesty dined to such
good purpose that being satisfied he said. Be hem dinat (" We have
dined well "). Some indeed allege that the king spoke in irony, his
country fare not having been prepared for royalty ; but, be that as
it may, the royal phrase gave its name to the place.
The Castle of Bellver, referred to above, has also the interest
of association, for it was here that Francis Arago was imprisoned
for two months in the Jwvtenaje tower. In 1808 the illustrious
astronomer came to Majorca to pursue his work in connection with
the terrestrial meridian. For this purpose he kindled some fires
on a lofty hill above Bellver. The inhabitants of Palma, curious and
suspicious, thought that signals were being made to the French fleet ;
and as Spain was then at war with France, hurried to the mountain
in order to put the treasonable signaller to death. Warned by a
friend, Arago descended towards the town and met the infuriated
crowd ; but as he spoke the language of the country with perfect
facility, he was not recognised, and took refuge on board a boat lent
by the Spanish Government to the scientific mission charged with
the measurement of the meridian. The crowd soon learnt where
he was, however, and became so threatening that the captain, refusing
to be responsible for the scientist's life, lent him a small boat, in which
he reached Bellver fortress, only getting away from his pursuers by
the merest chance. After two months' imprisonment he succeeded in
22
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
escaping in a fish-
ing boat to '-Al-
giers, where fresh
vicissitudes a-
waited him.
The Castle of
Bellver, built to
defend the en-
trance to the Port
of Palma, is a
curious relic of
the military archi-
tecture of the
Middle Ages. Its
lofty walls are
flanked by four
towers and as
many turrets.
The interior is
composed of a
circular enclosure
arranged in two
tiers, with two
galleries above.
The lower of
these, with plain
arches, is almost
Roman in its severity of type, but
the upper, with its rich mouldings and
trifoliated bays, recalls the carved
cloisters of the sixteenth century.
Two bridges connect the fortress with
the famous isolated tower of Jiomenaie^
or homage, in which Arago was con-
fined. The tower had already served
THE CHART OF VESPUZZI. 23
as a place of imprisonment for several personages of note, among
them being Jovellanos, dramatic poet and minister of Charles IV.
After the wont of so many captives, Jovellanos employed his leisure
in carving on the walls a chronicle of events, choosing for subjects
the deeds of which the walls had been the silent witnesses — murders,
fights, treasons, and mysterious dramas, in all of which the Christians
were cutting one another's throats. He wrote from his experiences
of Court intrigues. The Castle is also the tomb of the unfortunate
General de Lacy, who was shot within its precincts.
Another castle of interest in the vicinity of Bellver is the seat
of the Count of Montenegro, which contains a notable collection
of arms and tapestry, formed by Cardinal Antonio Despuig, an
intimate friend of Pope Pius VI., and an uncle of the then count.
There is also an immense library, in which the cardinal gathered
together all that was remarkable in the bibliography of Spain, Italy,
and P'rance. The collection of works on ancient art, and particularly
coins, is said to be unique. It was in this library that George Sand
was implicated in an accident for which the Majorcans still hold her
responsible. Among the treasures of the collection was a fine
manuscript nautical chart of 1439 — a wonder of patient and careful
design, and enriched with many quaint miniatures. It belonged to
Amerigo Vespuzzi, who purchased it at a high price, the Spanish
inscription on the map testifying that it was bought by him for
the sum of one hundred and thirty gold ducats. When the map was
being shown to the French authoress, a servant, with more politeness
than discretion, placed a very full ink-pot on a corner of the parch-
ment to keep it open on the table. The manuscript being generally
rolled, and the weight being insufficient to retain it in place, however,
the parchment suddenly reverted to its usual position, with the result
that the inkpot was upset, and the contents spilt over the face of the
map. The chaplain, who was showing the treasure, lost his head
completely, and, seizing a wet sponge, proceeded to clean the
manuscript, but with such superfluous energy, that he wiped out
the original as well as the new ink, obliterating at one fell sweep
seas, islands, and continents.
24 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
The map is now preserved in a frame under glass, and has been
removed from the castle library to the alqueria\(^Q,o\xn\xy house) of
Raxa, where there is a museum of antiquities belonging to the
same proprietor. This alqueria is charmingly situated in a shady
valley surrounded by mountains. In the time of the Moors the
name was Araxa, and the adjacent property formerly belonged to
the famous Arab, Beni Atzar, whose name it still bears. The
principal staircase of Raxa, bordered by statues and antique frag-
ments, the whiteness of which is relieved by the darkness of cypresses
and greenness of pines, is one of the most striking features in the
gardens round the house.
When lying awake in my room at the fonda in Palma, I often
heard the monotonous tinkling of guitars in the distance, and at
long intervals a simple song like an Arab chant. Earlier in the
evening the voice of the serenos, or watchmen, intoned an old
melody handed down for centuries : —
^
»-$zz<zzzz=Tzi^pz»-$qz:|[zz<--»-»-^j^$-$zi-$-$z:$
^-^ -4— fzifZ|=|[-f--f-^-^»izf-»ZJ-f-fz:ii J
A-la-ba-do se - a di-os las do-ce de la no-che no-bla-do.
The first phrase is certainly of Moorish origin, the Mahommedans
always commencing their discourses with similar praise to the Deity.
In Palma, the serenos^ who number about fifty, perambulate
the city the whole night through, chanting the time and the state
of the weather. They aid the sick and help belated travellers,
fetching the doctor, if necessary, for the former, and assisting the
latter to find a lodging. They signal to each other with whistles,
and in an emergency can assemble together in a very short time.
Passing through the town one day with the landlord of th^ fonda
de Mallorca, I was much struck by the Jewish types standing about
in the doorways or serving in the shops.
" They are Jews ! " I exclaimed.
" Don't speak so loud ! " said the landlord. " We are in the
Jewish quarter, but the inhabitants are all Christians now. For a
long time after their conversion they were compelled by law to
PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS.
^5
say their prayers aloud, for fear lest they should mutter blasphemies
under the semblance of fervour."
The Jews were horribly persecuted at Mallorca in the Middle
Ages. In the monastery of St. Dominic, now destroyed, the walls
of the cloisters were decorated with frescoes representing the tortures
to which these victims of religious intolerance were subjected. At
the foot of each painting was inscribed the name, age, and date of
execution of the person de-
picted. Some of the pictures
were marked by a representa-
tion of cross-bones, indicating
those whose ashes had been
exhumed and thrown to the
winds. I saw a list, printed
by order of the Holy Inqui-
sition in 1755, of the names,
professions, and offences of
the persons sentenced in
Majorca between the years
1645 ^^d 1 69 1. They in-
cluded four Majorcans, one a
woman, burnt alive for Juda-
sm ; thirty-two others im-
prisoned for the same " of-
fence," who died in the
Inquisitorial cells, and whose
remains were afterwards burned ; a Dutchman accused of Lutheranism,
a Mahommedan, and six Portuguese, besides some sixty others, who
were released from prison on retractation of their errors. Several of
the persons accused who managed to escape were burned in effigy.
Notwithstanding the prolonged Moorish occupation of the Balearic
Isles, the traces of Arab architecture are comparatively few. The
only noteworthy relics in Palma are the porch of the Templars*
Church and a bath-house in a private garden. On the other hand,
every lover not merely of architecture, but of the picturesque, will
Moorish Bath-house.
26 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
find much to please and interest him in the ancient houses of the
Majorcan Knights. Two of the patios or interior courts of these
buildings are exceptionally beautiful. They are those of the Olezza
and Sollerich Palaces. Nearly all the more interesting houses of
Palma appear to date from the beginning of the sixteenth century,
but the Renaissance architecture is in almost every case modified
by Moorish tradition. Above the ground floor there is but one
storey and a very low garret. The entrance from the street is an
arched doorway without ornament. Light enters the vast rooms of
the first storey through lofty windows, divided by columns of a
slenderness entirely Moorish, and one could easily believe that they
had been taken from some ancient Moorish palace like the Alhambra
at Granada. Some of the columns, though six feet in height, are
not more than three inches in diameter ; and the fineness of the
marble of which they are made, and the tasteful chasing of their
capitals, all point to Arab origin. The topmost storey is a gallery,
or rather a succession of windows, close together, and fashioned after
the pattern of those surmounting the ancient Exchange or Lonja.
The projecting roof is supported by artistically carved beams, and
besides affording a protection from rain and sun, produces the most
striking effects of light and shade, both by reason of the long
shadows which it throws upon the house, and because of the contrast
between the brown timber-work and the pure brilliancy of the sky.
The staircase, carved with great taste, is situated in a court in the
centre of the house, and separated from the street entrance by a
vestibule, the roof of which is generally upheld by columns with
sculptured capitals.
Landscape at SoUer.
At Miramar.
CHAPTER 11.
The Giant Olives. — The Carthusian Monas-
tery of Valldemosa. — Souvenirs of
George Sand and Chopin. — Miramar. —
An Enchanted Coast. — The Garden of
the Hesperides. — Soller.
AT seven o'clock on a fresh sunny
morning in November I left
Palma for Valldemosa and Miramar.
The streets were still silent, for the
people of Palma are late risers, and
we drove through the fortified gate
at the back of the town without hav-
ing encountered asingle wayfarer.
The white road unwound itself
like a ribbon across the plain towards
the mountains, which were half hid-
den by thickets of almond trees. Pale
pink in the light and transparent
27
28 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
azure in the shadow, the distant hills seemed so translucent that it was
hard to believe they were not the effect of a mirage. But as we
advanced and the sunlight fell more strongly on their bare summits,
the shadows came out more distinctly, indicating where the slopes
fell steeply into the ravines or ended abruptly in rocky cliffs. The
road led past white houses overshadowed by waving palms throwing
a blue shadow. The flat roofs supported galleries from which hung
bright red and golden festoons of pimentos, interspersed with huge
bunches of maize drying in the sun. Hedges of cactus, or the thorny
/ cochineal plant, separated the gardens from the road. The plain had
the appearance of an immense orchard. The Majorcans, working
with their mule teams under the almond trees, were singing the wild
melody of some ancient malagnena. At intervals we passed large
reservoirs full of water, forming part of an intricate system of
irrigation established centuries ago by the Arabs. Orange trees,
with vivid green foliage and golden fruit, and pomegranate trees,
from which the ripe seeds of the half-opened fruit fell in ruby
showers, bore )vitness to the richness of the soil. Contrasted with
these were the silvern trunks and bare, twisted branches of the fig
trees, still bearing last season's figs — figs of the Christian, as they are
called in Majorca, to distinguish them from the fruit of the cactus,
known as the figs of the Moor.
After two and a half hours' rapid driving we reached the moun-
tainous region, and entered a deep glen. Habitations became rare,
but the road was still bordered by rich foliage and bright flowers,
including the caper, the myrtle, the stepa blanca, with its starlight
blossoms, and the pretty little flowers known here as lagrimas
(tears).
The almond trees disappeared, and gave place to the olive.
These trees, which are of great age, and are said to have been planted
by the Moors, assume the most fantastic forms. Most have a huge
trunk, ending suddenly in a slender plume of branchlets. Others
are twisted like gigantic gimlets, or, like immense serpents, seem
to be fighting fold to fold. Some again resemble hideous monsters
with giant hands and grimacing faces, horrid with wens and nameless
THE ROAD TO VALLDEMOSA.
29
excrescences. Some seem to be running away in terror. The roots
writhe as if in pain, while the trunks seem furnished with troll-Hke
faces, fixed for ever in a mahcious grin. Altogether, these extra-
ordinary trees are more like the monstrous vegetation with which
the imagination of a Gustave Dore would provide Dante's Inferno,
than the symbol of peace and content.
I visited them once later on by moonlight, and, in spite of myself,
I shivered at the sight of their gaunt figures vaguely apprehended
in the chill radiance. They seemed to be moving, and the night
breeze rustling in the leaves ':;';'
sounded like spectral whispering, "~
while ghostly eyes appeared to
glimmer through the trembling shadows of their long arms.
Beyond the olive trees the glen became a gorge, where the
road was strangled between lofty summits, and an invisible rivulet
clattered under the fallen boulders. I was told that in winter this
rivulet becomes a raging torrent, which often renders the road
impassable.
Such an approach heightened the smiling aspect of Valldemosa,
with the vari-coloured clock tower of the old monastery, and its white
30 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
houses among palms and cypresses, brightening the sun-warmed
slopes with their joyous colour and rich vegetation.
The monastery was formerly occupied by fifty monks, and all
strangers and wayfarers could stop there for three days and nights,
during which they were lodged and fed at the expense of the
community, a special building being reserved for their use.
The cartuja, which was originally a fort, was built by the king,
Don Sancho, and was specially renowned for its falconry. The
building was given by King Martin to Don Pedro Solanes, who
transformed it into a Carthusian monastery, which existed until 1835,
when all religious houses were suppressed in Majorca. It was in
the deserted monastery of Valldemosa that George Sand and Chopin
passed their winter in Majorca. And while the rains beat upon
the windows, and the winter winds wept in the sombre galleries
of the ruined cloister, the musician, already sick of the malady which
eventually proved fatal, noted down the sad, complex harmonies
in which his thoughts found expression, while the authoress wrote
Spiridion — a gloomy book full of the feeling of the storm and
of turbid philosophy.
Ill fortune dogged them even in this retreat, and the Majorcans
treated the strange pair with scant courtesy ; though perhaps they
found consolation in the natural beauty of their surroundings. Yet —
such is the irony of fame — even their names are scarcely remembered
in Valldemosa. I asked in vain which rooms they occupied. No
one, not even the most aged inhabitant, recollected having seen
the couple. I learnt subsequently, however, that the piano used by
the composer is still religiously preserved by an inhabitant of Palma.
From the cartuja one, as it were, plunges into space. To the
south the mountains roll down to the glittering plain, where Palma
gleams like a point in the luminous immensity, and far beyond
the sea flashes like a sword-blade in the sun. Northwards, however,
the sea is close at hand, and, when the wind blows from that
quarter, the murmur of the waves is plainly audible.
On passing the last houses of Valldemosa we reach the top
of the ridge, and after traversing some cultivated fields we suddenly
THE HERMIT OF THE NORTH COAST.
31
perceive the open sea
at our very feet.
This is the north
coast, the most pictur-
esque portion of the
island, and the most
characteristic of Major-
can landscape, x^bove
the /tospederia, a sort of
free inn, established by
the Austrian Archduke
Ludwig Salvator for the
shelter of visitors and
wayfarers, is a hermitage
still occupied by a monk
of savage aspect, worn
out by privations, con-
sumed by the ardour of
faith, but still ready for
all conflicts — a typical
illustration, in fine, of
the mediaeval ascetic.
No sound troubles the
quiet of this solitary
place, save the eternal
dirge of the waves, or
perhaps the fluttering
of the wings of some
bird of prey.
On leaving the hos-
pederia the road fol-
lows the flanks of the
mountains along a lofty
cornice of rock, and
leads to Miramar.
The North Coast.
32 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
The situation of Miramar is remarkable. It is perched upon
an enormous rock overhanging the sea, which stretches like a piece
of crinkled blue satin far below, at a depth almost terrifying to
behold. The coast is jagged and rocky, full of crumbling crevasses,
precipices, and steep declivities — escarpada y Jiorrosa sin abrigo m
resguardo, says Miguel de Vargas.
These coasts, bristling with perpendicular rocks of blood-red
colour, where wind-distorted pines seemed to be drawing back as
if in affright from the abysses which they overhang, witness terrible
storms. Many ships have been lost on this dreaded shore, and often
not even a single piece of wreckage has remained to bear witness
to their fate.
There was little hint of these terrors, however, on the fine day
on which I saw the place. The warm air was balmy with the
perfume of aromatic plants, only prevented from being overpower-
ingly sweet by the wild savour of the proximate brine. The sun
gilded chestnut and pine, tall heath-bells waved in the wind, birds
sang in the leafy shade, saffron clouds pa3sed slowly across the
sky or caressed the mountain tops, the sea slept silently beneath — a
blue expanse stretching to a horizon of heat-haze. The archduke has
preserved Miramar in its pristine wildness. A few rough paths have
been cut in the rock, but no one is allowed so much as to break off
one of the dead branches which whiten on the trees or crumble on
the steep slopes. Owner of vast forests, the archduke buys his own
firewood. Trees live, grow old, and die without being touched. The
hoary rocks remain as they have been for centuries. Moss covers
and re-covers their sharp angles ; and in winter, when the wind howls
and the sea gnashes its teeth at the crumbling cliffs, huge boulders
fall unceasingly into the ravines below.
The sun was setting and empurpling the spires of the pines, when
by a zigzag pathway I ascended to the travellers' rest-house or
Jiospederia. There, whoever passes may seat himself in content. By
a pleasing custom— still observed, I am told, in the Holy Land— he
will find a table covered with a white cloth, plates, a glass, a wooden
fork and spoon, fresh water, salt, olives, bed, oil, and a fire. At night
THE HOSPEDERIA. ^^
an antique copper lamp with several burners sheds a weird, flickering
light. The women charged to administer hospitality receive the
traveller with smiling courtesy, and lead his mule to the manger or
his carriage to the coach-house. They will cook in oil the onions
and pimento which the poor man brings in his wallet and eats with
his brown bread, or roast the game provided by the more well-to-do
traveller.
The sleeping accommodation is the same for all, consisting of a
pair of scrupulously clean sheets, and in winter warm, soft coverlets.
This free shelter and hearth may be enjoyed for three days, at the
end of which the traveller, whatever his station, must give place to
another. No money must be offered for the services rendered, for
everything is a free gift, and the proffer of a donation would be
resented as an insult. What a lesson in kindliness is this hospitality
for countries priding themselves on their superior civilisation, where
the poor and the wanderer must generally go without shelter, and is
unable to seat himself by any fireside ! One sleeps well in the silent
and lonqly hospederia, especially when the day has been spent in
clambering down precipices and scaling rocks.
The sun was already high when I awoke, and 1 hurried to revisit
the sea and the woods, and to breathe again the delicious air,
redolent of the wild scents of the sierra and the sharp savour of the
sea. My morning walk led me to a cliff crowned by a watch-tower,
now deserted, but inhabited up to within a few years ago. The
raids of the Barbary corsairs rendered these watch-towers a matter
of necessity on all the Mediterranean coasts, and the promontories
of Majorca bristle with them.
A code of signals was invented by a Majorcan astronomer, by
which the towers were able to give notice to each other and also to
the neighbouring islands of Iviza, Cabrera, and Dragonera of vessels
passing near the coast, together with their destination and port of
origin. As I sat on a mossy rock in front of the tower I thought of
the by-gone centuries, when these coasts, now so untroubled, were the
constant witnesses of murderous scenes, and when the inhabitants
lived in a continual state of terror. I seemed to see the watchman
3
34
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
kindling his nocturnal beacon, which was answered from cape to
cape, till the alarm reached Palma, while, on the opposite side, the
answering flare of Soller called the attention of Pollensa, and
awoke the lonely bay of Alcudia and Cape Pera. I heard the
distant murmur of the call to arms, and the dissonant peal of the
alarm bells mingling with the shouts of the terrified people, Moros,
inoros en la mar ! (" The Moors, the Moors on the sea ! ")
But, coming to
myself, and looking
round me, I saw
nothing but the sun-
light streaming
through the trees,
heard nothing but
the singing of the
birds and the far-
away murmur of the
waves. After break-
fast at the Jwspederia
I shaped my steps
to Miramar, whither
the archduke had
returned on the
previous day. He
welcomed me with
the cordiality of a
brother artist, and in-
vited me to lunch, at which I met the rector of the institute of Palma^
Don Francisco Manuel de Los Herreros, to whom the archduke
owed his first introduction to Miramar. Their first meeting was at
sea, twenty years ago, when the archduke, heart-broken at the terrible
death of the princess to whom he had been betrothed, was seeking
to forget his grief in travel. Originally, the archduke had no idea of
acquiring so large a property as he now possesses, and selected merely
Miramar and the land immediately round the house. From the first
The Creek of I'Estaca.
THE ACQUISITION OF AN ESTATE.
35
he gave orders that the natural features of the landscape were not to
be interfered with. But one day it happened that a Majorcan was
felling an ancient tree on some adjacent property. The man was
within his right, and the only means of stopping such an act of
vandalism was for the archduke to purchase the peasant's plot of
land. This he did at a high price. The result was that all the
peasants in the neighbourhood commenced felling their trees, and
the archduke continued to buy their land, until he had expended
The Sea Road.
, ^ ' many thousands and se-
cured a vast estate.
After lunch, we all mounted mules to ride to San Masroig, the
residence of the archduke's private secretary. The road ran at the
base of lofty cliffs along the margin of the sea, and in some places
was protected by stone embankments to prevent it from being
washed away.
Suddenly the eye was caught by a long promontory of red rock
pierced by a yawning orifice, through which the sky could be seen
on the further side. It was the Foredada, a tunnelled cliff, under the
arch of which the osprey still builds its nest.
36
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
From this point onwards the road climbed the cliff sideways,
by a kind of stony stairway, so steep in many places that even our
mules found it difficult to keep their footing. As we ascended higher
and higher the boulders beneath seemed to diminish to the size
of mere pebbles, and even the Foredada appeared flat on the sea,
like a cape in a map, outlined with a band of blue.
At length we reached a plateau, and entered a grove of olives,
where we dismounted at the
gate of San Masroig. Here
I took leave of the arch-
duke, and, entering a galera,
drove off along the road to
Dea and Soller, passing a
band of handsome work-
girls wearing immense straw
hats, which helped to set
off their brown complexions
and dark eyes.
After driving for several
miles along a ledge high
above the ever-present sea,
we turned sharply to the
right, and entered the valley
of Dea.
The landscape changed in
character, and everything in-
dicated that the inhabitants were very industrious, being compelled to
wrest their fields from the virgin rock. Nevertheless, the scattered
houses were surrounded by shady gardens, where the ripening oranges
gleamed in the trees. Palms and olive trees flourished, and, in many
respects, the village was the counterpart of the hamlets that nestle
among the foothills of the French Pyrenees.
Dea had become a thing of the past, when, on reaching the
summit of a hill, I perceived at my feet the beautiful valley of
Soller set like a gem in the heart of a lofty chain of mountains,
Work-girl oi Miramar.
A Peasant and his Wife.
THE " GARDEN OF THE HESPERIDES. 39
the lower slopes of which, with the plain at their feet, were covered
with verdure ; and even where I stood the air was heavy with the
rich perfume of flowers and fruit. The country was one vast
garden — medlar trees, lemon trees, apple trees, palm trees, almond
trees, banana trees, cherry trees, fig trees, peach trees, and apricot
trees floated, as it were, on the sea of orange trees which covered the
plain, with here and there a house gleaming like a white foam-fleck
on the waves of foliage. It was the garden of the Hesperides.
So fertile was the soil that a single tree has been known to bear
as many as two thousand five hundred oranges, and a bunch of
grapes has been cut weighing twenty-two pounds. Majorca is popu-
larly supposed to be covered with orange trees, and a sailor serving
on the line between Marseilles and Algeria once told me that he
could smell their perfume twenty miles out at sea. This must have
been the effect of his imagination, for, as a matter of fact, the
Balearic Isles, especially Majorca, produce very few oranges. The
district of SoUer is the only exception ; and even here the production
has fallen off considerably, owing to the trees being attacked by
disease.
The evening shadows were slowly creeping up the mountain
slopes as we drove rapidly down the zigzag road, and when we
reached the town the last rays of the setting sun were reddening
the peaks of the Puig Major of Torella, the loftiest mountain of
the island, which rises to a height of nearly five thousand feet. A few
oil lamps which flickered in the wind were the only lights in the
dark, narrow streets. I was so tired with my journey that I fell
half asleep with my elbows on the table when dining at the fonda.
Next morning I visited the harbour, which is about an hour and
a halfs walk from the town. It is surrounded by steep hills, and
resembles a vast pond, being apparently landlocked, as the narrow
strait on the north connecting it with the sea is indistinguishable.
It was from here, according to tradition, that St. Raymond of
Penaffort crossed the sea to Spain, with no better boat than his
cloak, when he was fleeing from the king, who, deaf to his counsels,
persisted in living irregularly with the Lady Bernegwela. The king
40
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
had given orders to all the boats not to take on board priests or
monks, but the saint, trusting to the faith which conquers all things,.
threw himself into the sea, and was safely conveyed to Barcelona,
To this day the sailors point out the rock on which St. Raymond
stood while evoking the protection of Heaven.
In 1398 the women of Majorca organised a naval force, called- the
Holy Army, with the object of delivering the Mediterranean from
The Hermit of Miramar.
Moorish corsairs. In May 1561 the pirates attacked Soller, but
were defeated through the energy and courage of two women,
Francisca and Catherina Casanovas, in memory of whose exploit
a nautical feast is held each year, called " The Feast of the Valiant
Women."
Soller was one of the most important towns of Majorca. The
population exceeds eight thousand persons. Its women enjoy a
great reputation for beauty, which is justified by their appearance.
Their features are regular, and their expression is one of perpetual
AT SOLLER.
41
tranquillity. Their dress is charming, consisting'Jof a [skirtji'a short
apron, and a black bodice with elbow-sleeves, over which a band of
the chemise folds back, and is fastened by bright-coloured glass
buttons. Their heads are covered by a rebosillo^ a sort of muslin
cowl which leaves the neck and shoulders unconcealed.
The men of Soller possess a remarkable talent for improvising
verses in the Majorcan dialect, and the most eloquent members of
the Balearic Bar are natives of Soller. It was here that I saw for
the first time the ancient Majorcan costume, which is not unlike
that of the modern Greeks, supplemented on Sundays and feast-
days by a hat with a wide brim and a cloak with long sleeves.
'I he "Rebosillo."
Roman Bridge at Pollensa.
CHAPTER III.
Trom Palma to Pollensa..— Yuca and its Majolica Ware. — Pollensa. — The Campo
Santo. — Don Sebastian. — Majorcan Dances and Malaguenas. — The Sanctuary
of Lluch.
A MINIATURE railway crosses the greater portion of the
island, and a branch line at Enpalme connects the capital
with Manacor on the east.
The speed of the trains, as might be expected, is not excessive,
and the number of stations is legion. A well-merited tribute must,
Tiowever, be paid to the courtesy of the officials. The ticket-collector
never enters the carriage without respectfully greeting the travellers,
and thanking them for the honour of inspecting their tickets.
Moreover, every man is anxious to impart information, and the
stranger need never lack a guide.
Looking from the windows of his compartment, the traveller is
struck by the immense forests of almond trees, the blossom of which
42
MAJOLICA WARE. 43
in early spring gives the plains of Majorca the aspect of a vast flower
garden. Beyond the almond thickets the low country is dominated
by the mountains, on the rocky escarpments of which one catches
glimpses of old ruined sanctuaries. The first stopping-place of
importance is Benisalem, a town of three thousand inhabitants,
founded in A.D. 1300, surrounded by rich vineyards and fruit gardens.
The church is built of marble and jasper procured from adjacent
quarries. There are also lignite mines in the vicinity.
We next pass the little town of Lloseta, climbing the slope of
a hill, facing the lofty, scarped crests of the Sierra del Norte. The
antiquity of the place is proved by the medals and other objects
of Phoenician, Carthaginian, and Roman workmanship which have
been found in the locality.
A little further on the train reaches Yuca, one of the chief towns
of the island, with a population of six thousand, and the principal
centre of the manufacture of Hispano-Moorish ware. Windmills
crown the surrounding hills, and contrast strangely with the palm
trees which overshadow the gardens. In the old parish church is
another of the uncorrupted bodies which so often form one of the
holy treasures of Spanish churches. The remains in this case are
those of a holy nun who died in the odour of sanctity.
The name Majolica ware, appHed haphazard to a large class
of Italian earthenware, is generally derived from Majorca. Scaliger,
who wrote in the first half of the sixteenth century, speaks in high
terms of the vases manufactured in his time in the Balearic Isles, and
■compares them to the finest china porcelain, of which he evidently
considers them an imitation, for he writes : —
" It is difficult to distinguish between the imitation and the
genuine article. The imitation ware made in the Balearic Isles is
not inferior either in form or brilliancy, and is even finer in elegance
of form."
The railway ends at the station of La Puebla, whence there is
an omnibus service to PoUensa and Alcudia. La Puebla is not an
attractive place. Its streets are straight and symmetrical, but terribly
monotonous and dusty, and the surrounding country is flat. The
44 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
people, nevertheless, are kind and hospitable. The stranger, gazing
curiously through the doorways to catch a glimpse of tho. patio within,
is invariably invited to enter, and is offered refreshments.
The Majorcan manner of speech has a melodious charm, especially
in the mouths of the women, whose voices are charmingly fresh.
They seem to be speaking always in the major key, and the words,
of farewell, which one hears at all hours of the day, are perfect
musical phrases.
" Bona nit tengua ! Es meu co ne bast a per li di^ adios ! " (" Good-
night to you ! My heart will not let me say farewell ! ")
1 reached La Puebla in the afternoon, and hired a carriage to
Pollensa.
" Vanios ! " said the driver, and we slowly drove away. Nobody
is in a hurry here ! We shall reach our journey's end at the
appointed time.
It was night when we arrived at Pollensa. The streets were
dark, narrow, and tortuous, the only lights being the glimmering
lamps placed before the casual niches containing pictures of the
Madonna or some favourite saint.
In the public room at the fonda some Majorcans were sipping
anisette, and several were twanging their guitars.
After dinner I went into the church, close to the inn, but the
service was not calculated to ensure a cheerful evening. Under the
shadow of the immense nave knelt a number of men and women
holding lighted candles. Otherwise the gloom was unilluminated,.
but beyond the flickering glare of the candles I faintly discerned
a catafalque, while unseen priests in the choir-stalls chanted the
Office for the Dead. The sorrowful psalmody, combined with the
darkness, was well designed to impress the congregation with a
wholesome fear of their latter end, but did not add to the pleasure
of living, except, perhaps, by sheer force of contrast.
It was quite a relief next morning to walk abroad in the sunlight
alongside the flashing waters of the Pollensa torrent. The stream
is spanned by a picturesque Roman bridge, and in many places
overhung by large, black carob trees, beneath the shade of which
THE MOURNERS BY THE WALL. 47
women were busily washing their linen, notwithstanding the fact
that it was the festival of All Saints. On this day the Majorcan.
fishermen do not put to sea, being convinced that if they cast their
nets the haul will consist of human bones.
The commemoration of the dead, customary on All Souls' Day,,
is extended over several days in the Balearic Isles. The first is
devoted to a visit to the cemetery, or Canipo Santo. Thither I
followed a crowd of women clad in black with rosaries in their hands,,
and men wearing the national costume, together with girls and
boys, but all silent and devout. The cemetery was very different
to the familiar graveyards of home. Not a monument, not a stone
was to be seen ; not even a fading wreath pointed the moral of the
grass of the field. There was merely a vacant space of turf, planted
here and there with dark cypresses, and enclosed by bare walls.
On the walls were some numbers. These alone indicated the place
of sepulture. As of old, at Jerusalem, the Jewish mourners used to
recite their prayers of sorrow before the wall, so here, at Pollensa,
the grief-stricken women knelt on the bare ground before the naked
masonry, with never a single kindly memorial to comfort their
soul. On this second day of November alone, a few black lanterns,
surmounted by a cross, were placed at intervals along the wall, on
benches draped with sable cloths displaying the design of the skulL
and cross-bones.
The setting sun reddened the melancholy rampart against which
the yellow flame of these lugubrious corpse-lights flickered in the
wind, while the wavering shadow of the cypresses fell athwart the
praying women like immense mourning veils.
A sort of grim procession made the circuit of the Campo SantOy.
the black-robed women pacing slowly along with bent heads, chant-
ing a funeral hymn, which they interrupted at intervals in order to
fall prostrate on the ground, with their faces towards the death-wall,.
The pathos of these intervals of silence was strangely punctuated
by the contented twitterings of the birds going to roost in the
adjacent woodlands.
As I was returning to dinner at the fonda, after nightfall, I met-
48
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
a genuine funeral procession. A cross-bearer in a large surplice
led the way, followed by acolytes with torches and chanting
priests. The coffin was carried by bearers, and the members of the
deceased's family brought up the rear. What surprised me was
the great rapidity with which the procession passed, priests, bearers,
and mourners almost running, as if in indecent haste to get rid of
their burden. The effect produced by the cortege in the dark,
narrow streets was fantastic to a degree. The lurid glare of the
torch flames, the
resounding
i voices of the
dirge chanters,
and the un-
seemly and disorderly haste of the mourners, gave the solemnity
.a spectral, preternatural appearance. It was a blood-curdling
legend in action — a troop of accursed beings driven before the wind
of the celestial vengeance, or hurried to doom by some diabolical
■curse.
Yet it was only a pauper funeral. The body would be conveyed
to the cemetery mortuary, to lie there all night with uncovered
face, watched by two guardians. Only on the evening of the next
day would the remains be sealed up in the Wall of the Dead, the
AT POLLEN SA.
49
delay of twenty-four hours being a precaution against premature
burial.
But from these matters it is a relief to turn again to the town
and its charming environs.
Pollensa is one of the oldest towns of Majorca, and the site was
formerly occupied by a Roman colony. The antiquity survives,
Cascade of the Gala de Molins.
however, more as an atmosphere than in the concrete form of
masonry.
Under the guidance of Don Sebastian, one of the priests of the
parish, I made an excursion in the direction of Cape Formentor,
to the calas (coves) of San Vincente and of Molins. Two mules and
a driver came to the fo7ida after breakfast, and we were soon seated
on the sheepskins which did duty as saddles, and making our way
4
7
50 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
up a shady road towards the hills, fording on our course several
swift and stony mountain torrents. These safely passed, we came
out on the bare hillside, and after riding for an hour and a half
across a waste of grey rock and detritus, suddenly breathed the
strong air of the sea, and found ourselves on the summit of a wedge
of lofty cliffs, which separates the two creeks.
The Cala de Molins is the outlet of a stream which falls over
the rocks in a fine cascade, and at high water it is difficult to dis-
tinguish the foam of the torrent from that of the waves.
The Cala de San Vincente shelters a few fisher-huts, but the
coast is wild and rocky, and there is only one narrow channel by
which boats can enter the creek.
The country to the north of Pollensa is a lonely, mountainous
region, being the wildest part of the semi-circular range which
protects the great plain of Majorca. These mountains, which,
between Valldemosa and Lluch, contain so many charming wood-
land scenes, are here bare and arid, with wide views over sea and
land. Some of the precipices are fringed with waterfalls, one of
which, the Font de Fartaritx, has the singular property of falling
only in the height of summer, when all the springs are dried up,
while in winter it shrinks to nothing. One of the loftiest summits in
this desolate region is crowned by the ruins of a fortress, known in
the country as the Castillo dels Reys. The path to the ruin is steep
and stony, and hard to find ; indeed, it bids fair soon to be obliterated
by falling boulders, and near the summit the visitor must pick his
way as best he can through a wilderness of naked rock, scrubby
brushwood, and dwarf palms.
Some assert the castle to be of Roman origin, and the Saracens
regarded it as impregnable. The Moors, under their chief, Xuayp^
took refuge here, after the capture of the capital by Don J ay me.
In 1343, when Palma and all the other strongholds of Majorca had
sworn fealty to Don Pedro IV., the standard of Don Jayme still
floated on the Castillo dels Reys, and the power of the governor,.
Arnaldo de Eril, wasted itself in vain before the lofty walls, now
dismantled and ravaged by every wandering wind.
MAJORCAN SONGS AND DANCES.
5^
A special expedition, provided with battering-rams and other
engines, was necessary to reduce the place to submission ; and even
then the soldiers of Don Jayme, after a three months' siege heroically
resisted, only surrendered to the power of famine.
As a view point, this lofty summit is superb. On every side is a
rolling wilderness of wind-swept summits and giddy abysses, a land
of flying shadows and lonely stretches of sunlit rock.
ALA.W
A Majorcan "Jota."
The hostess of the fonda at PoUensa had remarked that I often
spent hours listening to the guitar- players in the public room, and
one evening she organised a festivity in my honour, inviting the best
musicians and finest dancers of the town to take part in the perform-
ance. Young men came with their guitars, and girls dressed in their
best, and escorted by their families, arrived in goodly number, while
the sides of the apartment were lined with spectators, who overflowed
into the neighbouring passage. Two guitars and a violin performed
the overture, the theme of which was a popular Majorcan air.
J
52 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
A girl and a boy, with castanets, then danced a Jota to a guitar
accompaniment. As performed in Majorca, the Jota has neither the
iire nor the vohiptuousness of the Spanish dance, but it has a primitive
charm of its own which defies analysis.
After the dances came songs. Majorca cannot be said to have a
national literature, but there is plenty of fugitive poetry in the form
of songs and ballads which are still sung by the mountaineers.
These pieces, called malaguenas, are chiefly remarkable for their
•energy of expression. I noted down a few specimens on this evening
at the fonda. They are to be heard everywhere — in the mountain
solitudes, on the sea, along the dusty road — sung by shepherds,
fishermen, and muleteers. At night, too, one may often hear them
used as serenades to the tinkle of the guitar in the dark patios.
Like all primitive ballads, they are imbued with sadness, and are
remarkable for their vigorous expression of passion. The following
is a literal translation of four verses : —
" I know not why, mother,
But the flowers in the cemetery, -
When the wind shakes them,
Seem to weep.
'• I asked a wise man
Of what illness I should die,
And he told me ' Of love ' ;
Woman, I have loved thee !
"If blood were sold.
And 1 were rich and thou wert poor,
I would take from thy veins
What would mingle with mine. ...
" Dost thou wish to see if I love thee ?
Open one of my veins,
And thou wilt see my blood
Corrupted by suffering."
In another stanza comes a charming conceit : —
" A star is lost from the sky
And shines there no more ;
It has fallen on thee, love,
And gleams on thy brow."
OLD SONGS OF POLLENSA.
03
BARCAROLLE.
Andanlp
I sail o'er the sea night and day
To the sibilant shock of the breeze,
While my light bark drifts swiftly away
In search of some strange foreign shore
Where men live without love.
54 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
" Far from thee, I may forget !
See thee no more save haply in dreams !
In dulcet peace and rest of soul,
Loving no longer, content shall be mine."
The melody to which these words are wedded is full of the
languor of the southern night and the lilt of the southern sea.
Altogether, PoUensa is one of my pleasantest memories, and the
mere sound of a guitar always recalls to me my pleasant evenings
in its hospitable fonda.
Between Pollensa and Soller, in the heart of the hills, lies the
venerable sanctuary of Our Lady of Lluch. Its miraculous origin
recalls the story of Lourdes.
Five hundred years ago, a young shepherd, one of those who
remained in slavery after the conquest of Majorca, wandering in the
mountain pastures at twilight, suddenly perceived a blinding radiance
fall athwart a pile of rocks. At first, he was nailed to the spot by
terror, but as the light began to fade he warily approached the scene
of the marvel, and perceived on the rock a stone image of the
Virgin with the Infant Jesus in her arms. The figures were black,
but the vestments wherewith they were clothed gleamed with an
embroidery of golden lilies.
News of the miraculous find quickly spread, and a commission,
composed of members of the clergy, lawyers, and some of the chief
inhabitants, came over from Palma to investigate the matter.
Whether they came to scoff history does not relate, but they did
remain to pray, and the Virgin was solemnly declared patroness
and queen of Majorca.
The pilgrims who visited the place became so numerous, that
Don Guillermo de Como, the lord of the manor, had a house built
for their reception. This house was subsequently enlarged and
erected into a college, under the direction of a prior, with the
obligation of educating twelve choir-boys, natives of Majorca, who
were to be taught vocal and instrumental music, the Castilian and
Latin Grammar, and a little theology.
On feast days and in times of pilgrimage, these boys to this
> ' >
Water-carriers at Pollensa.
OUR LADY OF LLUCH.
57
day sing hymns in the Virgin's honour, to the sound of musical
instruments.
Pilgrims and travellers can at all times profit by the hospitality
of the monastery, for here, as at Miramar and Pollensa, entertainment
is a free gift, every wayfarer being entitled to three days' lodging,
fire and light, with table service, including the use of oil and
olives.
From Lluch there is a mountain path to SoUer, passing through
a stern landscape of forest, pierced at intervals by the blanched and
rugged summits of the sierra. The journey on mule-back takes five
hours, and is mostly by perilous paths cut along the precipitous
slopes of deep ravines.
i-3:?i
Entrance to the Caves of the Dragon.
CHAPTER IV.
Manacor. — The Caverns of the Dragon. — The Black Lake. — Lasciate ogni spei'anza.
^^ — Lost in the Darkness. — An Enchanted Lake. — The
^ C*. -''^-^ Caverns of Arta.
I REACHED Manacor by the branch
line from Enpalme.
,tr- After Palma, Manacor is the most
,'j5 populous town of Majorca, but it is
''■ >■ purely a business centre, and its
buildings are not worth notice. The
country round is a vast plain, and, with
the change of scenery, the character of
the inhabitants also alters. No longer
docs one see the form of the skin-clothed
shepherd silhouetted against the broken
skyline of the cliffs. No longer does one
hear the dreamy tinkling of guitars in the
58
A Spinster of the Predio.
'' MONEY, NOT MANNERS." 59
dusky patios. The hospitable and leisurely mountain-folk, with their
old-world songs and quaint customs, are of the past, like the patriarchal
manners which they perpetuate.
Here, in the towns of the plain,, the matter-of-fact resumes its
sway. The people hurry to and fro about their business, drays are
being laden with barrels bearing the trademarks of well-known
foreign firms, pigs are being driven from the railway station to the
port for shipment to Barcelona. The people are less courteous, the
children more sullen They do not fall on their knees to kiss
the hand of the priest as they do at Pollensa. They have a greater
idea of themselves. They have seen many foreigners ; some have
been to Marseilles or Algiers ; they are in business ; they are making
money ! Money, not manners, is the ruling principle.
Hence, there is less to interest the traveller or the stranger
than there was in the mountains — at least, that is to say, above-
ground.
But there is much that is quaint and curious, and even terrifying,
underground. There, in silence and darkness, the forces of nature
have for centuries been hewing and shaping an architecture more
sublime than was ever conceived in the wildest dream of the Gothic
craftsman.
The caves of the Drac (the Dragon) and those of Arta, near
Manacor, are some of the finest in the world.
I could not, therefore, leave Majorca without having seen them.
Accordingly, one spring-like morning in mid November I left the
Fonda Femenias at Manacor and hired a galera to convey me to
the caverns. My friend at Palma, Senor Sellares, who knew of my
intended visit, had previously taken the trouble to spend three days
in the caves in order to photograph them by magnesium light, for
to hope to obtain an interesting or truthful presentment in a mere
sketch would be indeed a vain project.
The road from Manacor leads past the harbour, a busy little
creak, speaking well for the commercial prosperity of the town.
Further along the shore is a musical stone, which when struck by
a stick gives out harmonious and remarkably prolonged vibrations.
6o THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
A rock in a neighbouring bay is said to be encrusted with fossilised
human remains, whence it is called S'hoino mort.
The caverns of the Dragon lie on, or rather beneath the estate.
of Don Jose Moragues, whose casa de campo (country house) is not
far from the entrance to the caves. The latter are closed by a
strong door, lest imprudent visitors should attempt to enter without
a guide, and lose their way in the maze of passages.
My guide, having kindled lamps with reflectors, divested himself
of his coat and waistcoat, and invited me to do the same.
A hot and oppressive atmosphere ascended from the depths of
the caverns, and made me feel ill at ease.
" You will grow accustomed to it in time," said my companion,
as he handed me a lamp and a thick stick.
We were as yet only in the vestibule of the caves, and still
enjoyed a sort of twilight, but we soon came to a wall of rock in
which yawned a dark fissure. This was the real entrance, and it
required little fancy to imagine written on the portals the fateful
words of Dante : —
*' Lasciate ogni speranza, o voi die entrate"
Just such an entrance would lead to an inferno, a rock-bound door-
way, rigid, chill, and dark.
The name of Drac (Dragon), given to these caves, would seem
to point to an old belief that the place was once guarded by one
of the monsters, but I did not hear any legend to this effect.
After following a narrow gallery, we emerged upon a spacious
cave known as the Salon de Palmera (Palm Tree Saloon), The floor
is uneven, and littered with huge blocks of stone, in the midst of
which rises la Palmera, a tall slight column, like the trunk of a
palm tree, while delicate stalactites, hanging from the roof like
pendent foliage, complete the arboreal resemblance. There is a
second column of larger diameter and greater variety, but it lacks
the elegancy of the Palmera.
We continued our way, passing two immense stalagmites
resembling two idols squatting on their haunches— images of the
The "Palmera."
THE UNDER-WORLD.
63
infernal deities of the dark world which we were exploring. But
Christianity has penetrated even underground, and our next halting-
place was a grotto known as the " Cave of Bethlehem."
" Take care," cried the guide, " there is water in front of you ! "
I turned my lamp on the ground, but saw nothing, and was about
to adv^ance, when the guide's strong arm barred my further progress,
while at my very feet he stirred with his stick a liquid surface,
Las Aranas.
which I had not perceived. It was indeed water, but water so
colourless and transparent, that even when warned it was difficult to
credit its existence.
Avoiding this, we pursued a tortuous course through a maze of
narrow, dark galleries with low-pitched roofs.
At times it seemed impossible to breathe, and with the oppression
of the body came a corresponding oppression of spirit. My guide,
who had been watching me for some time out of the corner of his
eye, observed, " Few people escape the instinctive fear which you
(64
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
now feel, and not a few persons have been too afraid to venture
further than here. But there is no cause for fear. Even if our lights
go out, there are lamps and matches hidden in certain niches in the
rocks and sheltered from the damp. It was not so always, but —
I may speak of that later."
Thtis reassured, I summoned up my energy and continued the
journey. We passed el Fraile (The Friar), a stalaf7"mite resembling a
cowled monk, crossed a
section known as la Carbo-
nera (The Coal-mine), where the walls blacken the hands like coal ; and
coming beneath /rt:i"y^;'<^waj" (The Lustres),immenseclustersof stalactites,
hanging from the roof like chandeliers, emerged upon a promontory
jutting out into the little Lago de hi Sultana (Lake of the Sultana).
At this point my guide left me for a few moments, clambered over
the scarped rocks, disappeared round a corner, and presently stood
with his lamp amid the opposite stalactites. The effect was wonder-
ful. Before me stretched a still, transparent sheet of water, flashing
fantastic reflections of the columns and crystal filigree work with
THE BLACK LAKE. 65
which it was surrounded. Talk of mountain solitudes ! What were
they to the loneliness of this subterranean tarn, whose waters had
slept in darkness for unknown ages ! Suppose strange beings of the
early world still survived in these recesses ! Suppose some half
evolved human creature
But such speculations were cut short by the return of my practical
guide, who led me to the Cueva de los Salchichones (Grotto of
Sausages), a shop of the Stone Age, from the roof of which hung
strings of petrified sausages and dried cod.
Beyond this came another lake, the Lago Negro, the largest and
most impressive of the lakes of the Dragon. Its motionless waters
were lost in obscurity. Huge pillars rose on every hand from
pediments of black rock, other slighter columns hung to the surface
of the water, and were reflected in an unbroken line by the incompar-
able purity of the liquid mirror. The stalactites were of every shape
and size. In one place, they formed a feudal castle, complete with
turrets and battlements ; in another, the pillared rows suggested the
idea of an organ raising its stone pipes against the walls of a subter-
ranean crypt, awaiting some demon-musician or Apocalyptic Wagner
to touch their keys, and break the awful silence with more awful
sounds, which should rouse the dead and summon them for judgment
to this new Hall of Minos. But the stillness was unbroken, and
oppressed the nerves more terribly than any noise. Such silence^
such immobility, such sinister torpor, seemed to make one lose
perception of time and space.
There are very few visitors who do not feel the strange impression
produced by these underground solitudes.
My guide, however, told me of an Englishman who bathed in the
lake, and in order to dry himself danced about naked on the rocks,,
pretending to play the violin, with his umbrella for instrument and
his walking-stick for bow. The natives even now cannot speak of
his unseemly levity without a shiver.
" But," say they, " nothing is sacred to an Englishman ! "
Next to the Black Lake comes the Cueva Blanca (White Cave)^
entered with difficulty through a narrow fissure. This cave is almost
5
66 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
blocked up with boulders, however, and the path is full of pitfalls,
so that one often has to hold fast by the rock-staples to escape
falling. Beyond this, the cavern has not been explored, and, to tell
the truth, the way does not look inviting, leading apparently to the
very bowels of the earth, and beset with crevasses and tunnels, dark
with the horror of the unknown.
It was a relief to turn one's back upon this dismal region, and, after
a few more windings, to arrive at the foot of el Dosel de la Virgen del
Pilar (The Shrine of the Virgin of the Pillar), a splendid natural
monument at one extremity of the so-called Salon de Descanso
(Waiting, or Resting-Room). This part of the cave is known as el
Teatro (The Theatre). From here, we enter the Cueva de los Catalanes
(Cave of the Catalans), a lofty rock-room, covered with fine
stalactites, in a corner of which rises el Descanso de los Extraviados
(The Resting-Place of the Lost), a monument eighteen feet high,
and one of the finest specimens of the natural architecture of
the cavern.
It was while sitting at the base of this that my guide told me
the story to which he had referred earlier in our exploration.
" Now that you are no longer nervous I can tell it you," said he.
*' The caves in which we are now, and of which we shall have soon
reached the greatest known depth — for much still remains to be
discovered — were scarcely known at all before the adventure of which
I am now going to tell you. One morning in April 1878 two
gentlemen of Barcelona left Manacor at daybreak, and at six o'clock
entered the caves, accompanied by a man who had offered his services
as guide. They intended to be back by noon, at which hour they
had ordered lunch at the Fonda Femenias. They had been exploring
the caves for some hours, when one of them noticed that they had
returned to a place which they had already passed. Fearing that
the guide had lost his way, they begged him to lead them back to
the entrance. He tried to reassure them, but was evidently ill at
ease, and, after vain wanderings through the labyrinth of passages,
admitted that he had missed the path. The travellers were in despair.
Their chief preoccupation was to economise their light as far as
LOST IN THE CAVES OF THE DRAGON.
67
possible, in order not to be left in darkness. They placed different
objects along the track they were following, in order to be able to
retrace their steps, if necessary. But all was in vain ; they only
wandered still further away. They ascended and descended ; rested
and went on again, often
stumbling, and some-
times falling into in-
visible pools of water.
The silence, the dark-
ness, the strange forms
of the stalagmites, the
rigid columns, the black
orifices of bottomless
abysses, the suffocating
air, the fear of dying
of hunger and thirst,
stimulated their failing
strength, and with fever-
ish haste they staggered
on for hours, bruising
themselves on the sharp
rocks, but always
haunted by the hope
of seeing at length the
faint ray of daylight
marking the entrance.
" Towards midday,
overcome by fatigue
and hunger, they rested
for a few moments, and
listened, in the hope
that, as they had not
returned at the appointed hour, a search party might have started
from Manacor. As they sat breathless |in the stillness, they heard
what sounded like the distant blast of a horn.
Cueva del Descanso de los Extraviados
68 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
" They shouted in answer, and waited, but heard no answer.
Again they shouted in desperation, but the sound of the horn grew
fainter, and finally died away.
" In utter despair they wandered about for a few more hours, and
ultimately sank down completely exhausted, near the place now
called after them, Descanso de los Extraviados (Resting-Place of the
Lost), As their lamp was on the point of expiring, one of the
party wrote on a stone the words ' No Jiay esperanza ' (' All hope
abandoned '). "
" And did they perish ? " I asked anxiously.
" No. At ten o'clock at night, sixteen hours after entering the
cave, they again heard the blast of a horn, but this time the sound
came gradually nearer, and presently they heard the voices of the
search-party organised by Senor Femenias, the landlord of the fonda.
In gratitude for their deliverance, they gave him a small piece of
pottery with a half-effaced design but no date, which they had picked
up in one of the galleries of the cave. This jar is still carefully
preserved at the fonda. The Archduke Salvator offered a hundred
douros for it, but Senor Femenias would not part with it. The
pottery is supposed to date from the Roman occupation."
I was now rested, and taking up our lamps and staves, we
descended a sloping gallery and entered the Salon Real (Royal
Saloon), a vast hall surrounded by queer-looking galleries, with
curiously wrought pilasters and glittering walls which looked as if
they were frosted. The floor was covered with blocks and obelisks
of stone, the largest of which is known as the Trono de David.
Leaving the Salon Real^ the way still led downwards through
narrow galleries, until we entered another vast hall, which seemed to
be a realisation of the Arabian Nights. In the midst was a lake,,
the Lago de las Delicias (Lake of Delights). Here we were confronted
by no gloomy cavern, but by a subterranean crypt of marvellous
richness and an architecture of pale ivory. It seemed an ideal world
with no existence except in imagination ; for, notwithstanding the
precision of the pillars and the firmness of the delicate tracery, every
object was diaphanous, and apparently unsubstantial, like a fairy
UNDERGROUND INSECTS. 7 I
palace in an Arab tale. My guide stirred the water, and the vision
shivered and seemed to crumble away.
Then, once more the pool grew still, and was of such crystalline
transparency that it appeared to have no substance, and resembled
merely a dense atmosphere. My guide pointed out a stalagmite like
a child, upstanding, with its head hanging down on its breast, and
another resembling a vase supported by an elegant pedestal, festooned
with strange plants. To the right the roof formed an immense arch,
completely covered with white stalactites.
Beyond this Elysian lake we came to another of smaller extent
but of great depth, called the Banos de la Reina Ester (Baths of
Queen Esther). This was the limit of exploration in this direction,
and we retraced our steps to the Salon de Descanso, and thence
through a series of long galleries to the Cueva de las Murcielagos
(Cave of the Bats), the floor of which is covered with a thick deposit
of guano, left there by innumerable generations of bats. The bats
have been frightened away by visitors, but the cavern still has some
distinctive fauna of its own. The guano, for instance, is inhabited by
a species of ant blind as deep-sea fish, and in the recesses of the caves
dwell weird-looking spiders with immense legs. I was wondering
where the flies came from to feed these spiders, when a tiny fly fell
on my sketch-book. Like the ants, it was blind, for it blundered
against the pencil which I held in front of it, having evidently not
perceived the obstacle.
Pursuing our devious way, we entered the Bajada de Purgatorio
(Descent of Purgatory), the roof of which is upheld by huge columns
from which project malformed stalagmites of a pale, bone-coloured
earth, not unlike fungoids, blanched by the absence of daylight.
A few moments later a pale light gleamed through a crevasse,
and we re-entered the vestibule whence we had started. We were
perspiring, and my guide handed me my coat and vest, and bade
me wait for a good half-hour in this transition atmosphere before
exposing myself to the outer air.
Another series of caves, named after the Archduke Luis Salvator,
opens into the vestibule, but I did not have the courage to explore
72 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
them. They are rarely visited, being dangerous to walk in and
suffocatingly hot.
As I was about to enter the galera to return to Manacor, my
guide took me to the adjacent coast, and showed me an immense
opening in the cliff surmounted by a watch-tower. " That opening,"
he said, "places the caverns in communication with the sea. The
water of the lakes is more or less brackish according as it is nearer
or further from the sea. The level of the lakes falls when the wind
is off land and rises when the sea-breeze blows."
From Manacor to Arta is a long drive, but the road is pleasantly
diversified, and affords pleasing glimpses of the Mediterranean.
Near Arta are some gigantic architectural remains of the kind
generally described in northern countries as Druidical. They are
hidden in a forest of chestnut trees, and closely resemble the nuraghi
of Sardinia. The Majorcan peasants call these monuments claper
des gegants. They are of remote antiquity, and are supposed to have
served as places of sepulture.
About an hour's drive from Arta, near Cabo Vermejo, on the
slope of a precipitous cliff above the sea, is the wide entrance of the
cavern called in the country Cueva de la Ermita (Hermitage Cave).
The caves of the Dragon are rendered remarkable by their
mysterious lakes and the richness of the various rocky halls. These
caves of Arta impress one by their size and Cyclopean grandeur of
decoration. One point in their favour is that the air in them is
far purer, and one does not experience the sense of oppression and
even of fear which renders the caves at Manacor so fascinatingly
terrible.
The caves of Arta have been known for several centuries. The
chronicler Dameto, in his history of Majorca, written in the
seventeenth century, speaks of some people who were lost in
their recesses, and, unlike the explorers of the Descanso de los
ExtraviadoSy never again saw the light of day.
The caverns are of grandiose dimensions. Few stalactites are
to be seen near the entrance, but they become more frequent as one
goes further in. Among them is the Virgen del Pilar, an immense
THE INFIERNO OF ARTA.
75
natural stone statue. Beyond this one enters the Sala de las
Columnas (Hall of Columns).
The most remarkable pillar, however, stands alone in a sort of
crypt, where there is nothing to detract from its immense size and
singular beauty. An
Englishman is said to
have offered to pur-
chase it for twenty-
seven thousand
douros.
The most fantastic
part of this subterra-
nean region goes by
the significant name
of rinfierno. It is a
nightmare in stone.
Tongues of petrified
flame seem to lick
the walls. An enor-
mous lion squats in
one corner, staring at
unhewn tombs over-
h u n g by rigid
cypresses. Strange
forms of antediluvian
monsters lurk half-
seen in the obscurit}".
Many of the stalac-
tites, when rapped
sharply with a .stick,
emit musical notes,
some like the vibration of a harp string, others like the deep reso-
nance of a church bell. These latter are in an immense hall as vast
as a cathedral nave.
On leaving Manacor I returned to Palmi, in order to take the
bala de las Columnas.
76
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
Steamer to Alcudia to visit the island of Minorca, just visible on the
horizon like a faint blue cloud.
One word must be said finally in dispraise of a country otherwise
so charming, and that is, that throughout the lowlands, and especially
at Manacor, the mosquitoes are a perfect pest. Not only are they
the terror that stalks by night, but even driving along the roads
one encounters immense swarms, as pertinacious as midgets by a
Scottish trout stream.
Sea Entrance to the Dragon Caves.
Entrance to Port Mahon.
CHAPTER V.
A City of Tombs.— Port Mahon.— A White City.— Serenades.— Christmas Celebra-
tion. — Ancient Customs. — Monte
Toro.— The Talayots.—The Chafers
of the Angelus. — The Musical
Cobblers.
THE ancient town of Al-
cudia, on the bay of
the same name, lies on the
slope of a hill about two miles
from the shore. Its fate has
been a strange one. After
playing a great part in the
history of Majorca, often dis-
puting the title of capital with
Palma, it fell on evil days,
and was almost abandoned.
A traveller who visited it at
the beginning of this century
described it as a city of
^^'^^^.^f
78
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
tombs. Its position between the two finest roadsteads of the island,
however, is so favourable to commerce and navigation, that, in order
to induce the people to settle there, the Governor offered a sum
of money with a free grant of land and a house. In spite of this,
however, the -town to this day is desolate and poverty-stricken.
* • . ^ Roman Gateway at Alcudia.
From Alcudia to Port Mahon in Minorca is a seven or eight
hours' voyage, and often a rough one, the channel between the two
islands being quite exposed to northerly and westerly gales. Water-
spouts are frequently seen in the Straits.
The broken coasts of Minorca soon come plainly into view,
surmounted by the Monte Toro, the highest hill in the island, whose
cone-like summit resembles the Puy de Dome in Auvergne.
PORT MAHON. 79
After a rough time off the Isla del Ay re (Isle of the Wind), at the
south-west corner of Minorca, we doubled the cape, and entered the
calm waters of Port Mahon.
To the right rose a lofty promontory, breaking down to the sea
in red precipices. It is called the Mola, and is the dragon which
guards the harbour, being strongly fortified and well provided with
guns. It is surmounted by an ancient watch-tower.
The spacious harbour winds into the land, like Falmouth estuary,
with many secondary basins and back-waters. The Mahonese claim
that all the fleets of the world could anchor here without being in
sight of one another, and the safety of the harbour is borne witness
to by the old proverb '' Junio, Julio, Agusto y Puerto Mahon, los
mejores puertos de Mediterraneo son^' ("June, July, August, and Port
Mahon are the best ports of the Mediterranean ").
Opposite the Mola are the ruined fortifications of the once
renowned Castillo de San Felipe. Beyond this came into view, one
by one, the immense lazaretto commenced in the reign of Carlos IV.,
and still unfinished, the Isla del Rey, where the military hospital has
been erected, the suburb of Villacarlos, and the islet of los Ajusticiados
(Isle of the Condemned), where prisoners sentenced to death were
executed during the British occupation. The Isla del Rey was also
called by the British "Bloody Island."
The town itself rises on an amphitheatre of sloping cliffs, and as
we approached the white houses s'hone like snow against the dark
storm-clouds which had accompanied our steamer from Alcudia. A
very noticeable effect was the transparency of the shadows cast by
the buildings, against which the passers-by gleamed like spots of pure
colour.
Mahon is marvellously clean. Even the very pavements seem to
be washed and scrubbed every day. Each Saturday, both at Mahon
and at Ciudadella and the villages of the interior, the housewives
clean the outer walls of their houses with lime-water. They do the
same on the eves of fete-days. It is an amusing spectacle to see the
women, armed with brooms of dwarf palm and immense pails of lime-
water, gossiping along the walls from early morning, while they scrub
8o THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
and wash as if their lives depended upon it, fastening their brooms
to long poles, the better to reach the higher parts of the wall. Should
a death occur in a house, the walls are not whitened for a week,
a fortnight, or even a month, according to the closeness of the relation-
ship, or the degree of grief felt for the deceased. In rare cases the
walls arc not touched for six months.
An incontestable proof that the cleanliness of the houses is not
merely superficial is the complete absence of bugs, which are not
known in the island even by name. The interiors which I visited
displayed a cleanliness and almost prim tidiness scarcely to be found
in any country in Europe, except perhaps in Holland. This love
of order is seen even in the garrets of the peasants, where from floor
to rafter not a vestige of dust is to be seen.
Villacarlos, the suburb passed in coming up the harbour, is the
'^sailor-town" of Port Mahon. It contains several deserted barracks,
capable of accommodating three thousand infantry.
The favourite resort of the Mahonese is the village of San Luis,
the people of which carry their virtue of cleanliness to the verge
of fanaticism. The very roofs are whitened, and the side-walks are
marked by a white line like a cricket crease. At sunset the houses
take on a tint of pale blue, while the windows resemble plates of
molten metal.
Port Mahon possesses three theatres — namely, an opera-house, a
comedy theatre, and a hall of varieties. It has also a museum, but
its churches are insignificant from an architectural point of view, and
even the Ayuntamiento is a comparatively modern building.
The ancient fortified gate of Barbarossa is so called in memory
of the sacking of the city in 1536. The fleet of Charles V. was
expected. One day a squadron was signalled by the watchmen, and
the people flocked to the shore. It was soon discovered, however,
that the advancing ships were not the expected fleet, but the vessels
of the corsair Barbarossa. The inhabitants returned in all haste to
the town, and prepared to defend themselves. Barbarossa sent two
envoys, who entered by the gate since known by his name. No
sooner were the portals thrown back, however, than the pirate hordes
BRITISH TRACES.
8i
rushed into the city, which was compelled to capitulate. The con-
ditions of the surrender were not observed, however, and the town
was sacked and the inhabitants were reduced to slavery.
Minorca was for many centuries a coveted possession, and con-
sequently passed through many vicissitudes.
In 1536, as related above, Port Mahon was sacked, and two years
later the island was invaded by the Turks. In 1708 it came into
the possession of the Brit-
ish, only to be captured
by France forty years later.
Twenty years afterwards
the Spaniards became
masters of the island, but
the British soon recaptured
it, and remained there
until the Treaty of Amiens
finally surrendered it to
Spain.
Traces of the British
occupation still remain in
about five hundred words
of the local dialect, in some
children's games, and in
the general use of sashed
windows. The houses
have, moreover, an appear-
ance of British solidity and comfort, but it is to be regretted that the
use of the national costume died out on contact with the more
practical dress of the northerners.
The population of Mahon is about 77,000, but the town covers
a larger extent of ground than this figure would warrant, nearly
every house having its court and garden, and being tenanted by but
a single family.
The Minorcans live a patriarchal life, and are much behind the
times in many points. Thus in medicine they still follow the
6
The Gate ot Barbarossa.
82
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
Wine-Carrier of Mahon.
therapeutic method of Dr. Sangrado, especially in the country. Dr.
Colorado, a practitioner in Mahon, and an ardent advocate of modern
scientific methods, told me that he found
it most difficult to overcome the old pre-
judices.
When he is called to a country
patient, he always finds ready on a table
by the bedside a basin and bandages,
and the sick person holds out his bare
arm to be cupped. The patient's family
have great faith in blood-letting, declaring
that even if the patient dies he passes
away more tranquilly for the operation.
What is probably another trace of Eng-
lish influence is the absence of the usual
running gutter in the streets — a common
feature of French and Spanish towns. The inhabitants are forbidden
by law to throw any slops out of doors, but must keep them for the
carros dels Xuchs.
These are low " * ^
barrel -shaped
carts drawn by
donkeys, which ' »-
visit the houses
at certain inter-
vals. '^.
The practice
of love-making
by serenade is
much in vogue
in Minorca, and i.
frequently of an
evening one
comes upon a young man leaning against a wall, singing some ancient
love ditty to the gentle accompaniment of his guitar while his eyes
El Carro dels Xuchs.
" LIVING PICTURES." 83
are fixed on a neighbouring balcony, where a female form is indis-
tinctly visible in the moonlight.
The manner of paying court to a girl is peculiar. The young
men are not received directly into the house, but the girl's family
permit the maiden to hold conversations with her lover or to gaze
at him from a window. When, as occasionally happens, unfortunate
results follow, the parents scratch their heads, and wonder how
accidents could occur under such restrictive conditions.
But scandals are rare. Minorca is a Christian land, and a country
where the tradition of the family is a potent force.
At Christmas every house has its " crib," or mimic representation
of the stable of Bethlehem. Some of these are very elaborate,
including a sky displaying the star of the Wise Men, the three kings
themselves, with negro attendants and camels loaded with gifts.
These tableaux are not confined to the scene at Bethlehem.
Sometimes there is a panoramic representation of the entire life of
Christ up to the final scene of Calvary. The anachronisms in these
pictures are flagrant The sea, for instance, is shown covered with
steamers and gun-vessels.
Moreover, the scenes are not always religious. Sometimes a
sportsman is seen shooting in close time. The report of firearms is
heard, and a hare perhaps scuds across the mimic stage ; gendarmes
promptly appear to arrest the poacher, who, amid the plaudits of
the spectators, escapes with his dog at his heels.
Another favourite device is that of a man seated beside a lake
with his mouth open. Live fish jump from the water into his throat,
and he blows them back again. At other times a trade is
represented — a crowd of bootmakers, carpenters, or joiners are
busily at work, the place of honour being filled by Saint Joseph,
who saws wood.
Then comes the collection. An aged bedesman comes on the
scene with a wooden bowl, and taps the ground to attract attention.
The visitors hasten to contribute. If the coin be a good one, the
collector places it in an alms box ; if it be bad, he throws it angrily
away among the audience.
84 . THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
Every evening, from Christmas to the end of January, the people
go round from house to house, to see these representations, called
bethUems de pastous.
At Christmas, also, every confectioner's shop has its bethlhm
of sweetmeats, the shopkeepers vying with each other in organising
the most attractive "show."
The Minorca churches also have a special Christmas custom.
On the morning of Christmas Eve the calenda, or martyrology of
the day, is solemnly sung to the accompaniment of the organ, by
a chorister attended by twelve boys, clothed in white, and carrying
lighted candles, who are called sibylles.
Meanwhile a drink known as la calente (the hot drink), composed
of brandy, sugar, and aniseed, is prepared in the sacristy, and
subsequently drunk, with sugar-plums, by the priest, the chorister,
and the twelve sibylles.
At Christmas, it is the duty of all children up to the age of
sixteen to pay a visit of ceremony to their godparents. The
children, with arms crossed on their breast, bow profoundly, and kiss
the hands of their godfathers and godmothers, who then offer them
cakes and presents of money.
From November to the end of January every Minorcan family
has one pig or more fattening. The killing of these is an occasion
of great ceremony, known as Matansa de pore. All the members
of the family — children, grandchildren, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc. —
assemble, often to the number of one hundred persons. White
aprons and sleeves are fastened on the children, and while their
elders are killing and preparing the pig, these little pork-butchers
march through the streets, singing : —
" Faldaret defora,
Faldaret dedins,
Tanca sa porta,
Y fiqicet en dins"
The very little ones, who cannot follow the others, are given
the animal's lower jaw, which they tie a string to and drag about the
THE MUSICIANS OF SPRING. ' 85
courtyard like a toy cart, filled with pebbles and other childish
treasure.
Thus, when every one is busy, the children are conveniently and
kindly got out of the way.
On the night following the death of the pig a singular game is
played. A ribbon of paper, called el tio, is fastened to a man's back.
Thus decorated, he walks slowly round the room, with his head down,
his back arched, and his hands on his knees, wagging the ribbon like
a tail. Another person follows him with a light.
The first sings in a mixture of Spanish and Mahonese : —
''No me lo e7icendras
Lo tio de detras"
The second answers :-
Si te lo encendre
Lo tio de paper.''
The lighting of the paper is a difficult operation, and the two
men walk for a long time round and round the room, while the
spectators crack their sides with laughter. The parish priest is
invited to all these games, and would greatly offend his flock if he
kept away.
Another quaint custom of a more poetical character is observed
in spring. A company of field labourers, with guitars, gttitarons
and mandourrias, go from farm to farm by night singing Catalan
songs. They stand before the doorway of the farmhouse, and
prelude with muted strings. Then the guitar gradually grows louder,
the other instruments join, and the voices of the serenaders, sometimes
in unison, sometimes in parts, swell in volume, till the windows are
discreetly opened, and when the songs are sung the spring musicians
are invited inside the house to partake of refreshments. When they
are satisfied, their knapsacks are filled with eggs, sausages, white
bread, and a bottle of wine, and the party make their way to the
sea, where they spend the following day on the beach, singing and
feasting on the results of their night's peregrination.
This Easter observance was brought to Minorca by the Catalonians
86 THE FORGOTTEN- ISLES.
and Aragonese, who came with Alfonso III., in 1286, to conquer the
island.
The numerous coins and medals found in Minorca bear witness
to its successive occupiers. Many are of Phoenician or Carthaginian
origin. Others bear the effigy of Macedonian kings, and some are
Celtic or Iberian. Coins of all the Roman emperors have been
discovered, as well as money from Athens, Ephesus, Sarnos, Nimes,.
Marseilles, and the Spanish colonies of Rome.
The environs of Mahon are arid and rocky, and offer little
to attract one. It was therefore with pleasure that I accepted an
invitation from Dr. Colorado to spend the day at his country house
on the lower slopes of Mount Toro.
This hill, which is some thousand feet high, rises nearly in the
centre of the island. At the top is a monastery in ruins, which used
to be a place of pilgrimage to which men and even women climbed
barefooted. Some actually ascended on their knees, telling their
beads as they went.
At the beginning of this century the greatest treasure of the
monastery, then tenanted by Augustinian monks, was a rude sculp-
ture, representing a bull hewing out a statue of the Virgin with its
horns. The name of the mountain was said to be derived from
this miracle, but a more probable etymology is that Toro comes
from the word Tor^ meaning elevation. The view from the summit
is naturally extensive. The most striking feature is the steep, bare
hill of Santa Agueda, which was one of the oldest military posts
in the island. The Romans took advantage of so commanding a
position, and at a later date the Moors made it a stronghold, where
they held out for a long time against the forces of Alfonso III. The
fortress, which still stood at the beginning of the century, is now a
ruin, and what is left intact has been converted into a farm building.
The weather in Minorca is very changeable, and storms rise with
surprising rapidity, only to pass away with equal celerity.
While Majorca, sheltered from the winds by the Catalan coast and
its own Sierra del Norte, enjoys a mild, equable climate, Minorca,
situated further out to sea, and forming a sort of breakwater to the
THE TALAYOTS.
87
Gulf of Lyons, Is exposed to nearly every wind that blows, and the
changes of temperature are sudden and trying. • It is difficult to
speak of Minorca without referring to its archaeological monuments
— talayots^ navetas^ tatiias, megalithic habitations, menhirs, cromlechs,
antigots, etc. Of these, the first mentioned three are peculiar to the
Balearic Isles. They are popularly supposed to be of Celtic origin,
but it has yet to be proved that the Celts ever occupied Minorca.
The typical talayot is a cone truncated a short distance from its
base, and formed of immense blocks of stone roughly planed on the
internal surface
in order to give [
greater stability |
to the structure.
The stones are
set in parallel
rows, and each
row consists of
a single line of
stones. The
summit of a ta-
layot is invari-
ably a horizontal
platform with
, A Talayot.
no parapet, and
not even a bed of soil to make it level. The only other structures
of antiquity which they resemble are the nuraghi of Sardinia. The
latter might well be perfected talayots, and it is perhaps something
more than a coincidence that the ancient name for Minorca was Nura.
The talayots are to be found in every situation — on the hills, in the
valleys, near the sea or inland — in fact, wherever the materials for their
construction were to be obtained. Some consist of a single chamber,
and probably served as a dwelling-place or a temple. Others contain
only a stairway to the platform, and were merely watch-towers. The
simplest are filled with stones, and a few originally contained cinerary
urns.
88
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
Several have external cells built at various heights against the
wall, but without symmetry ; and certain constructions are crossed
by simple or bifurcated galleries with cells, and passages ascending
to the platform. Two or three talayots have the shape of the
segment of a circle or of an ellipse. At what epoch they were
built can only be matter of conjecture.
The navetas — diminutive of nau, a vessel — are of the shape of a
boat keel upwards. They are built in the same manner as the
talayots. The prows of all the navetas point to the north, and
we find again traces of elliptical shapes, suggesting ideas of the
mysterious early religions in which the science of the infinite seems
to have played so large a
part.
The taulas have no affinity
with any other known monu-
ments. They consist of an
immense square stone of slight
thickness, -erected vertically
on the ground, in which it
seems to be sunk to a very
slight extent, while on the top
of this uncertain support is
balanced another stone of equal length and breadth, but thicker.
The equilibrium is generally perfect, but in some cases, as in the
taula of Talati di Dalt, the horizontal stone is supported by a third.
Round some of the taidas is a vast circle of menhirs, forming a
complete cromlech.
Their use can only be conjectured, but most probably they were
altars — a theory which is borne out by the fact that while most of the
vertical stones are well chiselled, the horizontal slab is always found
in its natural state, the ritual ordaining that no sacrifices should take
place on altars profaned by the hand of man.
But of what the sacrifice consisted it is hard to tell, for the
dimensions of the altars forbid the idea of human victims or even
of animals of any size
-'"li:i3^ ' -
'■kk
. .4 s«*
%
f^?^te.=..^.
^^
Taula of Talati di Dalt.
THE CHAFERS OF THE AVE MARIA. 89
The finest specimen of these strange constructions is at Trapikco,
where there are also some talayois, and one of the inexplicable
walls to be found in the country, known as antigots.
It was at Trapuco that I heard the Minorcan name for cockchafers
— chafers of the Ave Maria \ so called because they appear at
twilight, when in this Catholic country every peasant stops to
murmur a prayer as he hears the Angelus bell.
That same evening I visited the theatre, and learned, to my
surprise, that many of the actors were bootmakers of Port Mahon.
The cobblers in Minorca seem to have a monoply of music, for
nearly all are singers or instrumentalists, and they number nearly
five thousand, including apprentices. The boot trade is one of the
most flourishing in the island, which annually exports nearly ;^200,ooo
worth of boots and shoes, principally to Cuba and Central and
South America.
Yet will it be believed, that in this country of cobblers the
fishermen go barefoot, while the work-people generally wear only
a kind of rudimentary sandals called avdrcas, which they make
themselves, of untanned leather?
Among the smaller industries is the manufacture of fancy goods
from shells, which are found in great numbers on the shores of the
island.
Physically, the Minorcans have no special type. In the streets
I often met quite English faces, little girls with fair hair and blue
eyes, and young men with chestnut hair. The Spanish type is the
rarest, for the Spaniards, who fill nearly all the official posts in the
island, seldom marry or settle in Minorca. Hence, as in other
Spanish possessions beyond the sea, the sympathies of the people
are not with the mother-country.
Passing along the streets, I was often struck by the colour and
strange shape of some of the paving-stones used for repairing
purposes. They were much larger and darker than the others.
I questioned the passers-by without eliciting any information ; and
it was not until after I had left the island that I learned that these
stones, which, it appeared, had vexed the souls of several learned
90
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
geologists, were obtained from the deserted English cemeteries in the
suburbs of the town.
A friend of mine had the curiosity to turn some of them over,
and there, still plain to be seen, were the English inscriptions. The
Mahonese had had at least the grace to turn the faces downwards.
Many of the memorial tablets were sent out from England during
the British occupation by the families of those who died in the
island. No one walking through the bright, cheerful thoroughfares
would have imagined that he was treading on tombstones.
^S
The Road to Beni Duenis.
CHAPTER VI.
The Alcade of Ferrarias.
-The Distorted Trees. — The Barranco of Algendar. — A
Night at Subervei. — Ciudadella. —
The Breath of the Devil. — Return
^7% to Majorca. — Cabrera.
^^1
At the Barranco of Algendar.
THERE is a daily dili-
gence service between
Port Mahon and Ciudadella,
the ifecond town of the island.
The journey occupies about
five hours, and in this time
Minorca is crossed from one
side to the other. I had fol-
lowed this road on the occasion
of my visit to Monte Toro,
but as I had gone by night I
had seen nothing. Moreover,
the natural beauties of Min-
orca, which are numerous in
proportion to its size, lie
91
92 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
near the coast, and the road cuts right through the centre of the
island.
One bright day saw me on top of the diHgence, passing through
the old Barbarossa Gate on my way to the country. Passing the
harbour, where a few ships lay moored in mid-stream, we came upon
another British memorial in the shape of a monument to Brigadier
Kane, a former English governor, who constructed the road which
we were following. Beyond this lay stony fields, where a few lean
cows were searching for the scanty grass, which only grew in
occasional patches.
A little white town gleamed on a height where windmills were
turning rapidly, and added to the sense of life and motion given
by the clouds sweeping over the sky, and causing a procession of
shadows across the wide, bare country. The town was Alhayor,
the third in importance in Minorca. The streets are narrow and
tortuous, and there is only one inn, which is not of the best.
After a halt of twenty minutes, during which the postillions and
several travellers imbibed glasses of anisado, the odour of which was
more than enough, we continued our. way over the foothills of
Monte Toro.
The next stopping-place was the village of Mercadel, a pictur-
esque spot with a windmill amidst the houses. A stream ran through
the centre of the hamlet, and as the water was red and the cottages
were white, the effect was singular. The sickly complexions of the
inhabitants, however, plainly said that the place was unhealthy, and
I was told that in summer it is a hotbed of fever.
We clattered on along the well-made road. Troops of children,
armed with reeds, made a formidable noise at the edge of a
field.
" They are scaring away the birds," said a fellow-traveller.
" You should see them in harvest," added the postillion.
When the grain is ripening, boys and girls watch the fields, and
utter piercing cries, at the same time beating their hands with dried
reeds — et sonitu terrebis aves, as Virgil says in the First Georgic.
Leaving on our left the old English road, which at this poirtt
THE ALCADE OF FERRARI AS. 95
enters the wild chestnut woods of Beni Duenis, we descended
between wooded heights into a fertile valley.
Beyond this came another ascent, and the diligence suddenly
stopped before a roadside posada. My luggage was quickly placed
by the side of the road, and the vehicle lumbered on up the hill,
soon to disappear over the top of the slope.
The sun was setting. I was quite alone, and I looked ruefully
at the miserable inn and the village dimly visible in the shadow
of the valley below. But a moment later two boys appeared, one
of them leading a mule, and asked me if I was the gentleman
expected from Port Mahon. On my replying in the affirmative,
they told me that they were respectively the son of the Alcade,
and a messenger sent with a mount to convey me to Subervei,
a predio near the barranco of Algendar, and the property of Don
Rodriguez, a Mahon banker, who was to be my entertainer.
Before proceeding to Subervei I went down to the village of
Ferrarias, to give a letter to the Alcade. Visitors are rare in this
township, which lies in a low, unhealthy situation, and is the chief
village of the poorest district in Minorca. The village children, for
whom my arrival was an event, trooped after me to the Alcade's
house, shouting as loudly as if I were a predatory bird to be scared
away.
The Alcade took my letter with a grave air, put on his spectacles,
and solemnly read the missive, interrupting his perusal now and then
to run to the door with a stick to chase away the children, who
seemed to entertain but small respect for constituted authorities.
The official then offered me his services, and assured me that his
house was at my disposal. I thanked him for his generosity, and
reascended to the posada, where the young man with the mule was
awaiting me.
We started away as night was falling, and climbed a stony path
leading to a high tableland, with a distant prospect of the sea,
over which the moon was rising, its disc enlarged and elongated,
and of an orange-red colour, like the orb of a dying planet.
We were on an undulating plain, where the sun scorches in
96 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
summer, and in winter the wind blows coldly. Its aspect at the
close of an autumn day was weird and sad.
The trees, exposed to the constant sea-gales, are all bent south-
wards by the northerly winds. Their twisted branches, of the ashen
colour of the stone on which they grow, trail along the ground,
while the naked roots protrude from the barren soil. They crowd
up the arid slopes, struggling and grimacing, as if convulsed by some
agony of apprehension. Their very foliage is hard and rough to the
touch, like the dry skin of a sick animal.
A few consumptive-looking sheep wander over the stony soil in
search of subsistence. Many die of hunger in summer-time, but
with the autumn rains the slopes become again covered with fine
verdure, and those which have survived are able to find pasture.
They are pitiful objects as they wander with trembling steps over
the stones — wild, solitary creatures, eluding the sight like spectres.
At times my mule, knowing the road which I could not discern,
would suddenly halt. The guide would silently open a gate, and we
would pass through a narrow opening, where my knees scraped against
stone walls.
In the distance rose the dim crests of the mountains. Strange
effects of light gleamed at intervals on the distant slopes. The
wind rustled with a metallic clatter through the dry foliage of the
distorted trees. The howl of the homeless dog of some deserted
predio occasionally smote my ears.
It was a journey never to be forgotten.
The path grew worse and worse, and the mule stumbled at every
moment, but presently welcome lights gleamed ahead, and I heard
the homely barking of watch-dogs.
" Yonder is Subervei," said my taciturn guide.
They were the first words he had spoken since leaving the posada.
A last gate was passed, and we entered the courtyard of the
predio. Friendly hands met mine, and I heard the traditional
welcome, " Bona nit^ aqui ten vost^ la seua casa " (" Good-evening ;
this house is at your disposal ").
The dogs limped about, barking furiously, but they could do
THE ''BARRANCO."
99
no harm, their forelegs
being fastened together
with a chain, to prevent
them jumping over the
walls or attacking pas-
sers-by.
1 followed the women,
who preceded me carry-
ing copper lamps of Pom-
peian shape with large
smoking wicks. A table
was spread in the patio
with fresh water, bread,
and hard-boiled eggs,
frugal fare, but not to
be despised after my
hungry ride.
Early the next morn-
ing, one of the sons of
the house guided me to
the famous barranco of
Algendar, which was the
objective point of my
journey.
After crossing an arid
desert of stony mounds,
we reached the edge of
a huge crevasse which
yawned suddenly at our
very feet. I was about
to dismount, but my
guide caught my mule
by the bridle and bade
me keep my seat.
The barranco is a
rA
Rio of the " Barranco " of Algendar.
lOO THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
miniature canon, a fissure of verdure running across the sterility of
the surrounding country. On the uplands above, the sun scorches
the cracking soil, and the keen wind forbids all kindly growth. But
down below in the bm^ranco the air is always soft and warm, and
cool shadows lie across orange trees, rose bushes, and flowering
plants.
Passing through a narrow passage hidden between the rocks, we
rapidly descended a steep path under over-arching trees through a
sort of emerald twilight, pierced here and there by a shaft of gold.
A stream threads the bottom of the gorge, the precipitous red
cliffs on either hand alternately closing in to make a place of shadow^
and widening out to let the sun play on the green strath. The
waters murmur incessantly. Here, it contracts to a mill-race, and
after turning the wheel, expands once more to a placid stretch of
scarcely moving water, which mirrors the oranges and roses on the
bank. Aquatic birds flash across the surface, and w^here they dive^
break the still expanse into a whorl of quivering ripples. On every
side are orange trees, lemon trees, flowers, sweet perfumes, songs
of birds, and beating of feathery wings, while palm trees wave their
plumes against the warm cliffs that carry the eye to the unbroken
blue above. In Majorca we visited the Garden of the Hesperides.
This was the Terrestrial Paradise.
Houses cling to the cliffs like swallows' nests, and where the
ravine is bifurcated, a tall, isolated rock pinnacle rises like a cathedral
spire.
For an artist the " subjects " are ready-made, though no palette
could render the rich colours of the sub-tropical vegetation or the
bright, almost crude, hues of the rocks.
I passed the entire day wandering through the woods or straying
from mill to mill by the riverside.
When I returned to Subervei in the evening, I found the path
completely changed. At intervals, progress was barred by hastily
built stone walls or immense tree trunks, while locomotion was
hampered by bundles of faggots, heaps of dried weeds, or loose
branches. The foliage above our heads, however, was hung with
rrr^-^ISFP^
wWim
THE " PATH TO FELICITY. IO3
coloured ribbons, and garlands of flowers and fruit, like the route of
a triumphal procession.
While helping my guide to force a passage through the obstacles
in our path, I asked him why the road should be thus barred, while,
by a strange contradiction, it was at the same time decorated in so
singular a manner.
" An old custom," said he. " To-morrow morning we expect
one of my brothers, who was married to-day. Young men stationed
in the vicinity watch for the coming of the bridal couple, and do
everything in their power to make the road difficult. When the
bride and bridegroom appear, these bushes will be set on fire, fresh
walls will be built, and every sort of obstacle thrown in their way.
They thus learn that the path to happiness is difficult, while at the
same time their home-coming will be celebrated by garlands of
flowers. The fruit symbolises the abundance wished to the married
pair."
Another old wedding custom, now dying out, is for the young
people of the neighbourhood to build a wall against the door of
the house occupied by the young couple on the night after their
marriage. Bride and bridegroom, on rising in the morning, are thus
disagreeably surprised at finding themselves prisoners, and they are
often not liberated until late in the day.
The old mule which took me to the barranco conveyed me back
next day to the posada of Ferrarias, where I took the diligence to
Ciudadella, which I reached the same night.
Ciudadella was formerly the capital of Minorca, but under the
British occupation the seat of Government was transferred to Port
Mahon. A certain rivalry still exists between the two towns, to the
prejudice of the general interest. There is the same difference
between them as, say, between Glasgow and T^dinburgh. Mahon
is the busy, prosperous trade-centre ; Ciudadella is the city of leisure
and good birth. The bishop lives there, and in his train the higher
clergy, the large landowners, and members of the old nobility.
Ciudadella contains some fine houses, but the streets are narrow
and badly paved.
I04
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
At Mahon, a garrison town, peopled by all classes and races, the
inhabitants are obliging, amiable, and lively ; their ideas are more
liberal and advanced than elsewhere. At Ciudadella the people are
colder and more reserved, and their manners are solemn and sedate.
The innkeeper hands you your soup with all the airs of a grmtd
seigneur^ and the chemist seems to pontificate as he gives you a
seidlitz-powder. Your money is taken with the appearance of con-
ferring a benefit on you.
A French traveller ob-
serves that this frigid manner
is another trace of former
British influence, but as a fact
Mahon was the town most
frequented by the English.
The harbour is small,
being little more than a
narrow channel bordered by
rocks, difficult of access, and
only accommodating ships of
small tonnage. The situation
of the town, as seen from
seaw^ard, is very picturesque,
however, and the ancient ram-
parts built by the Moors add
not a little to the effect.
Old as the place is, it
being traditionally said to have been founded by a Carthaginian
general, there are no architectural monuments to speak of, and its
chief attraction is a natural phenomenon in the environs, called the
Buffador, or Breath of the Devil.
This is situated at the entrance to the harbour, near the dismantled
castle of Saint Nicholas. Some twenty yards from the edge of the
sea there is a narrow, round hole in the rock, of which the beach is
formed.
I put my ear to the orifice, and heard a sound like deep breathing
At Ciudadella.
THE '' BREATH OF THE DEVIL. IO5
from below. Sometimes it rose to the volume of a gale of wind, and
then grew feeble and stifled, like the last sigh of a dying man.
The opening being partially closed by blocks of rock, I begged
the man who acted as my guide to clear them away. As he seemed
loth to do so, I set him the example.
Instantly a violent blast from below drove clouds of sand and
earth into our faces, while the unearthly rumblings grew louder and
louder. In its way, this blow-hole was quite as noisy and conceited
as an Icelandic geysir.
As we left, I noticed that the guide hastened to roll back the
boulders over the orifice, and carefully mortared the interstices with
pebbles. Only when this operation was completed did he seem at
ease, and I then remembered the popular belief which attributes the
subterranean noise to the infernal snoring of his Satanic Majesty.
Not far from the Buffador there is a church dedicated to Saint
Nicholas, a saint held in great veneration by the sea-faring folk, who
make frequent pilgrimages to the chapel. The walls of the interior
are covered with ex-voto offerings — models of ships, pictures of the
saint appearing to his clients in the heart of the storm, and all kinds
of weird and fantastic objects.
The habit of placing such offerings before favourite shrines dates
from remote antiquity. Horace, in his Fifth Ode, refers to the custom
of hanging them in the temples ; and not infrequently those who had
escaped a great danger carried a picture of the event, suspended
round their necks, for the edification of their fellow-citizens.
Wandering along the shore, I came upon several beaches com-
posed of innumerable fragments of red coral. The fishermen, I
believe, often bring up whole corals in their nets.
The next morning I visited the church of the Rosary, which has
a curious facade coated with lime ; and in the afternoon, I embarked
on the little steamer, which conveyed me back to Majorca.
Due south of Majorca on a clear day, the horizon is broken by
the rocky outline of Cabrera, the third of the Balearic Isles. A
little steamer runs across at odd intervals, and I took the opportunity
to visit the island, which is, however, little more than a rock.
106 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
The appearance of the place is not inviting. On all sides there
is nothing but bare, sun-blistered rock, and an [old fortress on a
height above the harbour adds to the grimness of the arid desolation.
The historical souvenirs of the island are no whit more cheerful than
its aspect.
On April 3rd, 1809, five thousand five hundred French prisoners
of war were marooned on this rock, and left there without shelter
or clothes, and almost without provisions.
These were the remnants of an army of nineteen thousand men^
delivered to the Spaniards by General Dupont at the capitulation of
Baylen.
They were marched, in the first instance, to Cadiz, but when they
reached that city their number was already reduced to fourteen thou-
sand. These were imprisoned on the hulks, but what with bad water
and insanitary conditions disease soon broke out, and in a short time
eight thousand were on the sick list. Their sufferings were terrible^
and, to add to the revolting nature of their surroundings, the dead
bodies had frequently to be kept on board ' for a week in the
sweltering heat, before they could be thrown into the sea, as the
tides often washed the corpses back into Cadiz harbour.
Finally the five thousand five hundred remaining of the fourteen
thousand placed on the pontoons, were transported to Cabrera. The
story of their existence on the island is at once horrible and touching.
The allowance of food per man was twenty-four ounces of bread
and a few dried beans every four days. Some devoured their scanty
allowance in a single day, and on the succeeding three, prowled about
in the hope of robbing their more provident comrades.
There was but one spring of fresh water on the island, and the
captives fought with each other like wild beasts to obtain access to
it, until some of the wiser spirits established a guard over the well,
and limited each man to a certain allowance.
No shipwrecked mariners ever passed a more terrible time than
these prisoners. Many tried to assuage their thirst by sucking pebbles
and shells to promote salivation. Others swam in the bay, but the salt
water, while it cooled their bodies, only aggravated their agony of thirst.
A HELL UPON EARTH. IO7
Gaunt troops of famished men paced the island continually like lost
souls, each suspicious of His neighbour, yet fearing to remain alone.
They had perhaps good reason for their fear, lashed to madness
as they were by the famine fiend. Murder was not unknown, and
in one instance a prisoner was found preparing to make a ghastly
meal from the remains of a comrade.
The only humanising influence on the island was a solitary
donkey, which happened to be wandering over the rocks when they
arrived. This poor animal did good service in carrying water and
wood for the sick, and soon became the pet of all.
But he also fell a victim. The boat which brought supplies from
Corsica was several days overdue, and the position of the men became
desperate. They had eaten everything they could find, down to rats,
lizards, snakes, and shell fish. Many died of starvation, and others
succumbed to terrible convulsions induced by eating poisonous weeds
and even wood and stones. There was no help for it. Martin, as
the donkey was named, was sacrificed, and his body cut up into four
thousand five hundred pieces.
On the very next day the boat with provisions arrived, but many
devoured all their bread at one meal, and fell victims to their
imprudence.
Not a few instances were recorded of daring escapes on the part
of individuals on canoes rudely constructed by themselves. In one
case fourteen prisoners, after long and patient watching, seized a
Majorcan fishing boat which adventured close to the coast, and com-
pelled the fishermen to convey them to Tarragona, then occupied by
the French.
Some forty naval officers succeeded in building a vessel of old
barrels, with shirts for sails, the pitch being made from the turpentine
secreted by the few pine trees on the island, and oil saved from their
rations. But the project was denounced to the governor by a
traitorous comrade, and the ship was confiscated.
On another occasion, when a Spanish vessel came into the harbour,
forty-two men swam out and boarded it, threw the crew into the sea,
seized the oars, and escaped to the mainland.
I08 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
When first brought to the island, the prisoners were accompanied
by their officers, who succeeded in maintaining some sort of discipline.
But, later on, the officers and non-commissioned officers were taken
to England, and the excesses of the men then became so frequent,
that at last, in their own self-defence, they were compelled to institute
a superior Council to maintain order. Its decisions were irrevocable,
generally rigorous, and carried into effect as soon as pronounced.
The court was held in the open air, the judges sitting on stones
arranged in a circle for the purpose.
It was a lesson in the evolution of order from anarchy.
Gradually a perfect colony was formed, in whichr trades and even
amusements were zealously organised. A theatre was established in
a disused reservoir, on the walls of which the captives wrote the
legend " Castigat ridendo inoresr
Duels were frequent ; and as swords were lacking, the weapons
used were scissors, razors, knife-blades, and even sail-needles fixed on
the ends of sticks.
Their position in the matter of food became less intolerable as
time went on, for the Spaniards, unaware of the death of three
thousand prisoners, continued to send the same rations. Finally, on
May 1 6th, 1814, after five years' captivity and abandonment, the few
remaining men of the original nineteen thousand were taken off by
a French transport.
In 1847 the bleached bones of those who died on the island were
interred by the crew of the French corvette Pluton, and a monument
was erected on the spot bearing the inscription : "• A la memoire des
Frangais marts a Cabrera."
Iviza.
CHAPTER VII.
The Jayme Segmido. — The City of Iviza. —
The Women of Iviza. — The Agua-
dores. — The Pescadores. — A Queer
Fisherman. — Country Remedies.
LOOKING from the crest
of the Majorcan sierra on
a clear day, the spectator
sees far to the south-west a
small net-work of dark blue
specks breaking the clear
turquoise of the,
sea. They are the
Pithyusae, the least
known and most
remote of the Ba-
learic group.
An old paddle
steamer, which
makes a service
no THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
between Palma and Alicante, calls at Iviza on the way, and I decided
to avail myself of it to go to these distant and rarely visited islands.
In one respect, at least, the steamer reminded me of the old-
fashioned penny Thames steamboat There was no telegraph on the
bridge, and the captain's orders were transmitted to the engine-room
by a boy. " Stand by ! " yelled the skipper. " Stand by ! " repeated
the boy leaning over the engine-room. " Half speed ahead ! " from
the skipper, "Half speed ahead! "from the boy, and so on through
the gamut of modern nautical cries.
The Jaynie Segundo forged bravely ahead, leaving a double track
of foam across the sapphire sea. Brass- work and wood-work glistened
in the sunlight, white gulls followed in our wake, the sailors sang
at their work, children prattled merrily, and their seniors walked the
deck with a self-satisfied air. No one would have guessed what a
cranky old craft the steamer really was.
The shore loafers at Palma, however, indulged in much racy
humour at her expense. " She is too delicate," said they, " to go
out in winter, considering her age and long service ! " Others
declared that machinery doctors had inspected her thirty years
previously, and had not given her six months to live. But, for all
that, she made good weather on this occasion, and performed the
crossing in nine hours, which was evidently considered excellent
time — for her.
The mountains of Majorca faded away astern as the hills of
Iviza and the precipitous cliffs of the islet of Tagomago arose in
front. Towards sunset the town of Iviza came plainly into view. Its
white houses, with flat roofs rising in tiers round an amphitheatre of
rock, enclosed by copper-coloured ramparts, and surmounted by a
cathedral and a sombre fortress, recalled the Kasbah of Algiers.
The crazy steamer, making a " spurt " for display, with a plume
of black smoke streaming from her iron funnel, rounded the light-
house of Botafoch with much commotion, and proudly entered the
harbour, amid the enthusiastic cheers of the population gathered on
the mole to witness her arrival — the sole distraction of their
aaneventful days.
IVIZA.
Ill
After the customary struggle with rival porters, who each seized
upon a separate article, I reached th^fonda with my train of bearers,
all of whom, especially the man who carried my umbrella, kept
mopping their brows to show me how heavy their burdens had been.
I was shown
to a bare-looking
room with white-
washed walls,
decorated w i t h
coloured supple-
ments from
French illustrated
papers. On the
bed was a wonder-
fully worked quilt,
representing the
Blessed Virgin
upborne by
angels, round
whom was the in-
scription : "N'ues-
tra Senora de la
Aurora^ verier ada
en la villa de \
B enejam a '\'' Our
Lady of the Day- ^=
spring, venerated I / /
in the town of \ /^
Benejama"). \
The town of
Iviza, with seven thousand inhabitants, possesses only one hotel, and
even this lacks all comfort, in spite of the sonorous name of the land-
lord, Jose Roigt y Torres. He was familiarly known as el Coj'o
(Hoppy), from an infirmity in his gait. I can see the man now, with
his enormous head and his ugly eyes blinking under lashes as thick
I />■/*»«/
Vincenta.
112
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
as horsehair, balancing his ungainly body on his deformed legs as he
coursed round the table with the gestures of a performing bear,
stopping to expectorate at my very feet, and panting like a wild
beast, his breath reeking of vile tobacco.
And then the dishes of Heaven knows what meat, floating in oily
sauce, which he shoved under my nose, saying each time —
" Now, this, Senor, is simply delicious ! "
He must have grinned to himself at my alarm at the meats and
beverages which he brought me or sent by an old hag, disguised
as a servant, named Vincenta.
As I ascended the staircase my
nostrils were assailed by the nastiest
of smells, and I had to close the
door of the comedor in all haste.
The moon was just rising over
the sea, and I asked Cojo to open
the window, but no sooner had he
done so than T repented my rash
romanticism. The odour from the
harbour was worse than the smell
on the stairs. I had been warned in
Majorca that I should find Iviza a
dirty place, but I had not anticipated
such a universal infection.
After dinner 1 went for a moon-
light ramble through the town. Here,,
as at Palma, the lamps are only lighted
when there is a bright moon, and on dark nights they are not used at all.
Making my way up a steep ascent, I passed under a fortified
gate with a portcullis, and entered a labyrinth of narrow alleys.
From all the windows and balconies staffs protruded, and I
thought that preparations were being made for some festivity ; but
I afterwards discovered that the staffs were connected by ropes, on
which linen was hung out to dry in front of the houses. I scarcely
met a soul in the whole course of my wanderings, and the silence
'-4
f<
Ventaiia Comasema."
FORMENTERA.
113
of the streets was funereal. I was glad to get back to my room
at the funda, but the mosquitoes soon inspired a feeling of regret.
I had several letters of introduction to prominent citizens,
including the alcade, the dean of the cathedral, and one of the
canons, Don Torres y Ribas. The latter called on me at the hotel,
but 1 was out at the time, admiring a wonderful window of Moorish
architecture, the Ventana comasema. I stopped shortly afterwards to
look at an escutcheon on the
front of one of the houses, when
I was accosted by a young
ecclesiastic, with a pale face and
large, dark eyes, half veiled by
the long upper lids. It was the
canon himself We walked up
the hill together to his house
near the cathedral and episcopal
palace. On our way we passed
the Castillo inhabited by the
military governor, an old for-
tress with a battered keep and
crumbling ramparts, which afford
an asylum to nocturnal birds.
It seemed an anachronism to
see a modern sentry pacing up
and down before such a building.
The episcopal palace stands
hard by, and just opposite is the ancient curia, or court of justice,
with a fine doorway, combining the Gothic and Moorish styles,
surmounted by an escutcheon displaying the arms of Aragon.
In front of the curia is a small terrace, from which the island
of Formentera, the Pithusa Minor of the ancients, can distinctly
be seen.
I told the canon of my wish to visit the islet, between which
and Iviza small sailing boats pass daily. The priest, however, strongly
dissuaded me from making the attempt.
8
The Old Curia.
114 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
" It is an arid rock," said he, " containing two bitter lakes and
three fortified churches, like those you will see in the environs of
Iviza. For the sake of these, it is not worth while risking being
detained on the island for several weeks in dulness and misery.
The wind is favourable now, but if it should change while you were
there, it would be impossible for you to return."
I owned the wisdom of his advice, and reluctantly abandoned my
plan of visiting the lonely islet.
The canon lived with his mother and a charming young niece
named Pepita, but at the time of my visit the household was in mourn-
ing. An epidemic of diphtheria had been raging in the island, and
only a fortnight previously another of the canon's nieces and her two
little girls had been carried off within a few days of each other.
The women of Iviza lead a dull, confined life. It is not considered
proper for a woman to go much out of doors, and, except to pay
visits of ceremony or to attend church, they rarely leave their dark,
silent houses. The heat in these narrow streets in summer is
suffocating, but there is no shady public promenade as in other
southern towns, and of an evening, when the women of France, Spain,
or Italy flock gaily to the public gardens or boulevards, the senoras
of Iviza merely open the shutters and sit on the balcony to enjoy
the cool breeze blowing in from the darkening sea.
In respect of its silence, Iviza resembles an Arab town. There
are no serenos to tell the hours of night, as at Palma or Mahon,
and the tinkle of the guitar is never heard beneath its melancholy
balconies or in the shadows of its dark courts. Only the sea or
the wind wakes the echoes of this ancient town, buried under the
prejudices of a bygone age and an alien race.
The cathedral of Santa Maria la Mayo7% which the canon made
me visit, offers nothing of interest from an architectural point of
view. A low Gothic doorway near the sacristy and a painted altar-
piece of primitive design, are all that remain of the original structure
of Don Jayme el Conquistador, who ceded the Pithyusae to Don
Guillermo Mongriu, Archbishop of Tarragona, on condition that he
delivered the islands from Moorish dominion, and erected a Christian
The Aguadores.
A COMICAL RESTORATION.
117
church, in which mass would be said daily for the repose of the souls
of those who fell in the enterprise. The sacristy and the church
fittings betoken extreme poverty.
In the Sala
Capitulai^, the only
furniture of which
consisted of a
few leathern arm-
chairs covered
with dust and
gnawed by rats,
the canon showed
me a portrait of
Carlos III., the
king who in 1782
changed the title
of ciudad (city),
conferred upon
Iviza by his pre-
decessors, into
villa 6 real fuerza
clj Ibiza (town, or
royal fortress of
Iviza). This pic-
ture had been
" restored " with
comic effect. The
king's face, of a
bright, brick-red
colour, with eyes
like a prawns, seemed to be jumping
like a Jack-in-the-box.
There is a splendid view from the belfry. To the north a wide
plain dotted with white houses extends to a range of wooded hills.
Westward, the land, chequered with salt lagoons, slopes down to
^V
A
A Street in the Maritime Quarter.
out of the dark back-ground
Il8 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
the sea, on the horizon of which, far to the south, rise the long shapes
of Formentera and the rocky islet of Espalmador. To the east is
the garden-encircled bay of Iviza, and at one's feet the town, flat-
roofed and white like an Eastern city.
Fair as the town and gardens appear, they are, nevertheless,
veritable hotbeds of disease. Fever is endemic at Iviza. Besides
such obvious causes as putrefying vegetable matter, stagnant water,
filthy streets, drained by gutters which ' are no better than open
sewers, there is no doubt that the confined and sedentary life led
by the people helps to foster epidemics. Another custom favouring
infection is, that when the death-bell rings, all the children of the
neighbourhood are gathered together in order to give the last kiss
to the face of the corpse, no matter what disease was the cause of
death.
The inhabitants wonder at the persistence of fevers, but one has
only to visit the old, maritime quarter of the town, with its damp,
dark houses, and ill-smelling, narrow streets, without air and almost
without light, to see the primary causes of the unhealthiness of Iviza.
The very flowers and fruit that grow so luxuriantly on the rich,
decomposing soil, are poisoned in their germination.
In some streets of the upper town it is nothing unusual to sec
chickens, pigs, and even .sheep, tethered to the doorways, where they
are reared on vegetable and other household refuse.
Nevertheless, the upper town is clean compared with the repul-
siveness of the maritime quarter.
I should probably not have stayed in Iviza longer than I could
help, except that I was virtually a prisoner, as the steamer for
Palma only calls once in ten days, and not as often as that in rough
weather.
The only means of communication between the upper town, or
fort, and the harbour district, which is outside the ramparts and of
more recent origin, is through the ancient fortified gate of /as Tablas,
built, as its inscription attests, in 1585, in the reign of "Philip 11.^
Catholic and most invincible King of Spain and the East and West
Indies."
AN INFERNAL MACHINE.
119
Hither, at early morning, come crowds of market-folk with baskets
of fruit and vegetables, and the aguadores, or water-carriers, who are
indispensable at Iviza, where, except for the rain-tanks in a few
private houses, the only water supply is an old well near the harbour.
In the niches of the gateway are two marble statues, dating from
Roman times, one of a senator, the other of a priestess ; but both are
mutilated.
I entered into conversation with one old aguador, whom I asked
The Old Water-carrier.
to sit for his portrait. He informed me that a previous visitor had
taken the portrait of himself and his donkey while they were in
motion, climbing a hill. That senor, he added, had a little machine
in which there must have been a devil, for it was beyond human
power to do such extraordinary things.
During my stay I noticed that all the children, not even
excepting the infants, were perpetually smoking cigarettes. I learned
that this had been prescribed by the doctors of the town as a
precaution against the prevailing epidemic of diphtheria.
The only industry which I noticed at Iviza was the manufacture
I20
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
of earthen jars. In Roman days, and long afterwards, the cups made
at Iviza were reputed not to be able to contain poisons, the earth
of which the ware was made having the quality of neutralising all
venomous substances, so that the most dangerous liquids could be
drunk from them without fear. This belief gave a great impulse to
the manufacture and sale of these goblets, which became important
articles of export, and were much sought after.
The history of Iviza is little known. It is supposed by some
to have been first colonised by the Phoenicians, and according to
others by the Carthaginians, who gave it
the name of Ebusus, signifying unfruitful.
Most probably, it was in turn overrun by
the same invaders as occupied the other
islands of the group — Phoenicians, Cartha-
ginians, Romans, Goths, Vandals, Arabs,
and Catalans.
One is struck by the distinctly Arab
character of many of the faces one sees
in the country districts of the island.
This is far less apparent, however, in the
town, the people of which look down upon
the country folk as savages and barbarians,
the inhabitants of the upper town being
in their turn disdainful of the occupiers of
the maritime quarter, though these latter deem themselves far supe-
rior to the country folk.
The Pescadores (fisher folk) are a class apart. They spend most
of their time on their faluchos (feluccas), cruising along the coast
of the island and the north side of Formentera. Unlike the fisher-
men of other countries, nearly all arc clean shaven.
The coasts of the Pithyusae swarm with fish, of which there are
no less than one hundred and forty species ; but the weather is so
uncertain, that even in the best seasons the fishermen are in a
state of poverty. Moreover, means of transport hardly exist, so
that many a good catch is wasted for want of a market.
Fisherman mending his Net.
MEDICINAL BIRDS.
I2T
The notary of I viza, though of another trade, was perhaps the
most expert and certainly the most original fisherman I ever saw.
A perfect diver and swimmer, he would suddenly plunge into the
water, and come to the surface holding one fish in his mouth between
his teeth, and another in each of his hands. With his high colour
and flowing white beard, he more resembled a sea-god than a
prosaic man of law. He was always accompanied in his walks
abroad by a large, gaunt harrier, of the breed for which the Balearic
Isles, and especially Iviza, used to be famous. They are slender,
half-starved looking creatures, like the heraldic dogs which one sees
supporting a coat-of-arms. There are plenty
to be seen in the streets of the town, but I
was told that they were treacherous.
The climate of Iviza is warmer and more
equable than even that of Majorca. Rain is
also less frequent. The islands of the archi-
pelago differ as much in climate as in the
character of their inhabitants. Majorca is
mild and soft, Minorca windy and sterile,
Iviza hot and fertile. In the first island the
population is patriarchal, in Minorca it is
cosmopolitan, at Iviza it is proud and haughty
in the town, and rough and savage, but
very hospitable, in the country.
The country folk employ many queer remedies. I asked a
man one day the name of some large birds which I saw in the
harbour.
" They are garccsl' said he. " These birds possess great
medicinal virtues. We use their fat to make ointments, and the
down between the tail feathers and on the breast, when placed on
the skin of any man suffering from an hereditary complaint, will
cure him completely."
To cure rheumatism, the people apply the branches of a resinous
tree called sabina, which they heat before using.
The latter homely remedy is no doubt not a bad one, both the
The Notary.
122
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
warmth and the turpentine exuded by the tree having essentially
curative properties.
Seal skin is supposed to facilitate child-birth.
Another queer cure is that resorted to in the case of mules
suffering from colic. Pedro, standing on one side of the animal,
holding a white fowl, passes the bird over to Pablo, standing on the
other side, saying, " Take it, Pedro." Pablo passes it back, saying,
" Take it, Pablo." And thus they continue handing the fowl to and
fro, and exchanging names, after which pleasing and inoffensive
operation they go their way rejoicing, convinced that the mule
is cured.
^.^''/
Of Uncertain Temper.
Fortified Church of San Antonio.
CHAPTER VIII.
San Antonio. — A Fortified Church. — Primitive Music. — Santa Eulalia. — Courtship
and Gunpowder. — A Night Cry.— Love and Death. — Eljoch del Gall.
A
A " Cantado
DOUBLE rainbow spanned
the bay, and, according to local
weather lore, gave promise of a fine
day, as my friend the canon and I
drove into the interior on our
way to San Antonio, on the op-
posite or western side of the
island. Men working in the fields
raised their heads as we passed,
and I noticed that they wore a
kind of apron of goat skin to
protect their'legs from the thistles
and other thorny plants covering
the ground.
^- C- We crossed a deep ravine, now
"^ dry and rocky, but in wet weather
a raging torrent. The canon told me
that only in the previous year, two women,
124 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
who took shelter on their mules beneath the arch of the bridge, were
surprised by a sudden rush of water, carried out to sea, and drowned.
This torrent is named el torrente de ses Donas. Being dry for
most part of the year, the bed is used as a path.
The pagesos of Iviza call torrents in general torrentes roigs (red
torrents), owing to the crimson tint given to the waters by the soil
through which they pass.
The road along which we were driving and the neighbouring fields
were bordered with small white flowers with a strong scent, called
ramallets de la mare de Deu, ov flares de la Virgen. Mothers tell their
children that on these spots the Mother of God dried the linen of the
Holy Child, and the ground at once became covered with flowers.
An hour and a half after leaving Iviza, we came to the church of
San Rafael. The villages here are not agglomerations of houses in
one spot, but are scattered townships, of which a solitary church is
the centre. Only on Sundays do the people of the parish gather
together for service ; and if it were not for this weekly meeting, many
of them would never see each other, the houses are separated by such
long distances.
Many of the farms are fortified, and all the houses have an Arab
aspect, overshadowed by tufted palm trees. The road is bordered
at intervals by stretches of waste land, where flocks of black sheep
browse among the furze. Copses of almond trees, fig trees, and olive
trees grow round about the homesteads.
Turning to the right at San Rafael, we rapidly descended towards
the gulf on which San Antonio is built, the partus magnus of the
Romans. The white houses of the village are grouped round an
ancient fortified church, opposite the island of Cunillera, or Conejera —
in Spanish, the isle of conies — the precipitous, red cliffs of which are
crowned by a lighthouse.
The church, dating from the thirteenth century, is practically a
fortress. It is flanked by two massive towers, and the apse is
supported by a buttressed rampart, from the embrasures of which
old guns still point to the cala de las Maras, where the corsairs used
to land. As soon as the watchmen signalled the pirates' approach,
PRIMITIVE PSALMODY. I 25
all the people of the village took refuge in the church, which was well
supplied with provisions, and contained a well. The walls are nearly
eight feet thick, and a machicolated parapet over the doorway enabled
showers of projectiles to be hurled on the assailants.
The parish priest, to whom our visit was an agreeable surprise,
made great preparations for our entertainment ; and after much
bustling to and fro of servants and messengers, a nondescript but
gargantuan meal was spread for us at the presbytery, a small white
house abutting on the church.
In the evening we went to hear the caramelles de Natividad
(ancient Christmas carols), for which all the villagers assembled.
These traditional songs were sung to the accompaniment of a flautin
(a long flute), a tarnbo (tambourine), and a metal instrument like a
triangle. The music was primitive to the last degree, thin yet
plaintive, the sort of music which one imagines must have obtained
among the pastoral peoples of the dawn of Christianity.
But these religious chants, and the love songs which I heard
afterwards, all corresponded well with the character of the people,
with their simple faiths and violent passions.
The midnight mass in Iviza is a striking spectacle. The church
is brilliantly illuminated, and after the reading of the Gospel the
priest sits with his back to the altar, while the notables, wearing their
gala costumes, and with enormous castanets on their fingers, chant
to the assembled people the glad news of the Saviour's birth, to the
accompaniment of tabors and tambourines.
The music of Iviza differs greatly from that of the other islands,
and, owing to the people having come into contact with no external
influence since the time of the Moors, is much more characteristic.
The improvisers of poetry, known as Cansones, are numerous, while
the Cantados, who do not themselves compose, sing old ballads to the
monotonous accompaniment of the tambourine, which here replaces
the guitar in popular esteem. The almost innumerable verses of the
sentimental songs are frequently interrupted by heavy sighs on the
part of the singer, who concludes each strophe with a kind of trill,
producing a remarkable effect.
126 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
The costume of the peasants is dying out, and its use is now
almost entirely restricted to old people. It consists of a red cloth
cap, bordered with black, a white shirt with a high, stiff collar and
ample sleeves with the cuffs turned back, and often a pleated front,
a black silk waistcoat ornamented with two rows of pendent silver
buttons, shaped like round bells, a short coat similarly decorated,
and white peg-top trousers. On chilly days a large, brown, sleeveless
mantle is added.
The women wear a black bodice with tight sleeves, ornamented
with tiny gilt buttons, a bright-coloured shawl, and a long close-
fitting skirt of a thick, closely woven material, with an infinite number
of vertical pleats. A multi-coloured apron, embroidered with arab-
esque designs, and a large silk kerchief complete the costume.
They wear their hair ia a single plait, hanging down the back, and
fastened at the end by brown and yellow ribbons.
The great day in every village is the feast of the patron saint of
the parish. His image is exposed at the door of the church, and,
preceded by the alcade, the men, armed with old-fashioned muskets,
march past in rank, each discharging his musket at the ground as he
passes the statue. The hole caused by these discharges is often deep
enough to conceal a man, and it is not by any means unusual for the
muskets, which are generally loaded to the muzzle, to burst in the
firer's hand. One frequently meets men mutilated from this cause,
but such accidents do not in the least damp their ardour for firearms.
May not this apparently senseless device of discharging guns for the
mere pleasure of doing so be another Moorish trait, similar to the
" powder play " practised to this day by the warriors of Morocco,
when they wish to show any one special honour ? The dangerous
custom is now prohibited by law, but it is nevertheless still observed
in the remoter parishes. Droll as it may seem, the firing of these
same muskets plays a large part in rural courtship.
Some days after my visit to San Antonio, I drove out to the
village of Santa Eulalia, where I was again the guest of the parish
priest. The peasants had just come out from attending mass, and as
I was talking to the clergyman at the door of his house, I was
COURTSHIP AND GUNPOWDER.
129
Startled by several loud reports. On my asking the priest what the
sounds meant, he led me quickly to the foot of a little hill, where I
perceived a girl walking slowly home from church. A young man
An Ardent Avowal.
with a musket was hurry-
ing after her, and just as
he overtook her he sud-
denly fired at her very
feet, raising a cloud of stones and dust which almost hid her from
view. But without so much as the quiver of an eyelash the
girl continued to walk serenely on, and, the young peasant
9
130 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
placing himself by her side, they both continued their road chatting
amicably together.
This, it appears, is the recognised form of salutation between man
and maid throughout the island, and the girls make it a point of
honour to betray no emotion at the firing, though they are always
taken unawares ; for the loyers, wearing light espardenyas, creep up
behind them as silently as panthers. After spending the evening at
the girl's house, moreover, every young man takes leave by firing off
his musket in the middle of the room, adding '^Buenas 7tdc/ies " ('^ Good-
night"). This form of farewell shows that there is no ill-feeling
towards any of those present.
But if the visitor says good-bye first, and then fires, if, in the Arab
expression, he makes his powder speak, it is a defiance to a rival
admirer. He then leaves the room, and waits outside the door. The
challenge is invariably accepted, and fierce fights, and not infrequently
murders, result.
The church of Santa Eulalia resembles a mosque externally, and
the interior bears out the Eastern character. The porch, which is of
unusual size, is like a Moorish corridor, and the roof is supported by
rows of slender columns.
Sitting under an olive tree in the presbytery garden that after-
noon, I was struck by the intense silence of the hot noonday. Not
a breath stirred, not a bird fluttered, and the few rare insects of the
country were sheltering under the stones from the insupportable
sun-rays.
In the other islands, even on the hottest summer days, one always
hears the low murmur of life, the distant neigh of a horse, the rustling of
a branch, the buzzing of a fly, or the movement of an insect in the grass.
But in Iviza there is not a sound. The white, hot sky glares
down pitilessly at an arid land where everything is mute. It is only
when the evening breeze begins to blow in from seaward that the
tension is relaxed and movement recommences.
At this cool hour, I accompanied the priest down to the village
in order to see the peasants dance. On our way we looked in at a
peasant's. house. The interior was anything but homely — bare, white-
''A STRANGE, WILD CRY." I3I
washed walls, a few rickety chairs and a table, and in the corner
three shivering children with yellow parchment complexions.
" Tenen las tercianas " (" They have the tertian ague "), said the
priest.
At Santa Eulalia, as at Iviza and throughout the island, fever is
endemic, and malaria grips the people from their very cradles.
Dancing was already in progress on the p/asa when we reached the
village. To the sounds of tambourine and flute, the girls, with their
eyes cast down, and their elbows against their sides, and their hands
half uplifted in the attitude of a Hindoo idol, glided backwards and
forwards or turned slowly in a sort of waltz. The men, with immense
castanets {castagnolas) in their hands, gesticulated wildly in front of
their partners, whirling round, kicking out their legs in every
direction, and finishing with a leap in the air.
The symbolism was manifest. The man was courting the girl,
who shyly withdrew from his advances ; he kicked out to drive away
his rivals, and a joyous bound celebrated his conquest.
But twilight was falling, and the Angelus-bell pealed softly from
the church. Every one uncovered, and the priest recited the " Angelus
Domini," the peasants devoutly crossing themselves and giving the
responses.
I got into conversation with the profesor, the schoolmaster, and
with him slowly returned towards the church. I tried to discover
from him the truth of the strange account I had heard at Iviza of
the customs of the peasants, but I could see that he had a natural
reluctance to disclose the darker side of their mysterious habits.
The white walls of the presbytery were gleaming through the
dusk, when suddenly a strange, wild cry rang through the night —
" Hu'hu-hu ! " A similar cry sounded in answer from across a neigh-
bouring gorge. It was as if two wild animals were calling to each
other.
The schoolmaster shivered, and I felt his arm tremble against
mine.
" Are you ill ? " I asked.
" No. Senor, but I can never hear those terrible cries without
132 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
shuddering. Some one's powder has spoken. Often, at night, after
one of those fatal evenings, the silence is thus broken by a cry of
distress. That is all. But it means another body thrown into some
ravine where it will be found to-morrow. The invisible murderer,
his vengeance attained, slinks away through the woods, and is at
home before dawn. Who can discover the assassin? His weapon
has been hidden in some bush in the woods. There are no means
of identification. Perhaps the police come from Iviza to hold an
inquiry, but none will give them any information. The very parents
of the victim would not give up the name of the murderer, even if
they knew it. The victim himself, if he did not die immediately,
would not say who had struck him. Only last year two young men
were horribly wounded in one of these duels. They were found lying
in the woods still grasping their terrible navajas. They were con-
veyed in a dying state to the hospital at Iviza, where they both
succumbed without saying how they had received their wounds, and
denying with their last breath that they had been fighting. Love !
Jealousy ! Revenge ! It is the custom of the country. Even if tried
at the Assizes, the prisoner is always acquitted by the jury. Listen !
Here come some young men."
Some youths passed, and the few words they exchanged were
uttered in a kind of head-voice. They change their voices like
masqueraders at a carnival, and with such facility that it is im-
possible to recognise their ordinary tones. They all wear the same
dress, they know every inch of the country, and are extremely active,
so that it is labour lost to pursue them in the darkness. They
disguise their voices not only in order to avoid being recognised
themselves, but also to escape interrogation as to the persons they
may have met on their way. Moreover, they do not greet each other
when they meet after sundown. A greeting at night is regarded as
a grave affront.
At carnival time the young men have a habit of going masked to
the house of any girl whose lover is absent, and endeavouring to
wean her away from him. The lovers themselves will sometimes
adopt this expedient in order to test a girl's fidelity ; and never is a
STRANGE SUPERSTITIONS. 1 33
maiden able to identify the man who has visited her, so completely
is his ordinary voice disguised.
The Ivizan peasants strictly observe the external observances of
religion, but here, as elsewhere, this does not prevent them having
a very wide conscience, when there is question of deceiving their
neighbour. At bottom, their faith is fatalism.
" Dios lo ha dispuesto " (" God has willed it so "), say they, when
misfortune overtakes them or their family.
Withal, they are extremely superstitious. The gadfly brings
good news ; the hoot of the howl is a sound of terror ; Tuesday is
an unlucky day, and no work is ever begun on that day. It is fortu-
nate to meet certain animals, the reverse to encounter others. Cats
enjoy special consideration, and whoever kills one is bound to die
in the course of the year.
The politeness of the people is extreme.
" Whose is that house over there ? " I asked the priest of Santa
Eulalia.
" I inherited it, and it belongs to me, but it is yours also, Senor."
And when we came to the said house, the ecclesiastic exclaiming,
'' Well, we've reached the house at last," corrected the phrase, saying,
" I beg your pardon — your house, Senor ! "
One peculiarity of the peasants is that they have a horror of
giving a direct answer to any question.
" Are you coming to to-night's party?" I asked a man.
" It may be so, Senor, but it will be to accompany you."
These parties are called vetlladas (vigils), and are greatly in vogue.
We left the presbytery one night to attend such a gathering.
Our road was by rough pathways, where the stones, wet with dew,
glistened like jewels in the moonlight. The priest was accompanied
by several persons. From time to time one of the men would say
in a low voice, " Corazon ! Corazon ! " another would reply, " Corazon f
Corazon'' ("Courage! Courage!"), and the clergyman would add,
" Vamos con Dios 1 " (" Let us go in God's name ! ")
The people are so accustomed to hidden ambushes that they
never walk by night without encouraging one another by these words.
134
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
We proceeded thus towards a distant house
whose windows made squares of light against the
dark hillside. We soon heard the
sounds of tambourine and flute
r
and the barking of a dog.
" Dei'i los guard "
C' God keep
yo u"),
said the
peasant,
ushering
us into
his house.
We sat
beside
the mas-
ter of the
house in
a corner
of the
room.
The
young
people
conversed in low tones,
and occasionally a Can-
tadoy in a strong nasal
voice, sang one of the weird
popular songs, with an in-
termezzo of flute and tam-
bourine.
The daughter of the
house, wearing a gold cross
and many trinkets on her breast, sat to receive the homage of her
admirers. A young man was beside her with his back turned to the
Courtship.
A PROFITABLE PASTIME. 1 37
company. He talked in a low voice, and the girl occasionally pointed
his remarks with a shrill laugh.
Presently, he rose and silently rejoined his companions, the vacant
place being taken by another of the girl's admirers, who talked the
same soft nothings, interrupted, as before, by the sharp hilarity of the
maiden.
Thus, turn by turn, each man had his chance of paying court.
If one of them remained too long, or the girl showed any marked
preference for his company, the others signified their impatience by
coughing and shuffling their feet till he moved. Should he persist
in stopping by the girl's side, it is not unusual for the man who
should replace him to make him pay for his temerity by a bullet or a
blow from a navaja when he leaves the house. Sometimes he is
,torn away by force and hurled into the middle of the room, where-
upon follows one of the terrible midnight duels in the woods, referred
to above. In rare cases, all the young men divide into two hostile
camps, and a general conflict ensues, with fatal consequences for one
or more.
When the girl has finally settled upon her choice she is betrothed,
and the lover carries her off, with the consent and support of the
parents, who help to convey her to the lover's house.
Occasionally, the profesor told me, this kidnapping of the bride is
not followed by marriage. Some girls have several such escapades,
and return home without incurring any reproaches from their parents,
and without impairing their chances of securing new admirers and
finally marrying.
The evening gatherings generally take place on Sundays and
feast-days, and sometimes during the week, on a Thursday. The
courting and singing are varied by dances, among which lou fasteig
(the flirt) is most popular.
Of out-door games, the chief is th^Joch del gall (game of the cock).
It is practised in various ways. Sometimes the cock is fastened to
the ground, and the young men take shots at the bird with stones,
paying a fine of one halfpenny to the owner for every miss. As the
distance from which they throw is considerable, the owner of the
138
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
cock generally makes a good profit ; but sometimes, of course, a good
aimer will hit, and win the prize at his first throw.
Another mode of playing the game is for the cock to be hung to
the branches of a tree. The men, blindfolded, and armed with an old
sword, then try to cut it down. I saw the game played in this
manner at Santa Eulalia, and the way in which the men slashed
about them without hitting the mark was extremely diverting.
The pastime is a cruel one, of course, but it is not worse than
bull-fighting. It would be interesting to know if this game of
>^^^lji>~
A Fortified Farm.
throwing stones at a cock is the origin of the word " cock shy,"
meaning mark or aim.
But to study all the quaint customs of the Ivizan peasants would
require months of residence, and the time for my departure soon
arrived.
Mounted on an ass, as in primitive days, and accompanied by the
hospitable priest, I started back to Iviza town to catch the steamer
for Palma. At a turn in the path, I looked back and took a last
glance at the village with its white presbytery and old rampart-
flanked church. In spirit, I seemed to hear again the wild scream
which had rnade the pro/esor shudder, the dull report of the murderous
WHO KNOWS
139
musket, and the cry of distress which followed. I wondered if I
should ever again visit this strange, half-forgotten people, with their
barbarous customs and terrible superstitions. I said as much to the
clergyman when he bade me farewell at the top of the hill.
•' Quien sabe ? " was his wise reply.
part II.
CORSICA
141
Monte Cinto from Calacuccia.
CHAPTER I.
Ajaccio. — Memories of Napoleon. — Suarella. — Sampiero's Wife.— A Wild Drive. —
Woodland Scenery. — The Forsaken Inn.
SMILES are not to be
expected from Corsica.
Despite its sunny blue skies
and flowering fields, it is an
island of tragedy. The men
are grave and reserved : the
sad-eyed women dress
habitually in black ; the
children do not play, except
at fierce games, such as
"robbers" or "soldiers." The
people partake of the
character of the country
in which they dwell — wild,
austere, stormy, and, in
certain aspects, grand.
The Corsican race has
never been softened by
contact with more civilised
La Maison Bonaparte.
!43
144
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
peoples. Tried by adversity, the Corsicans take a pride in preserving
their old characteristics, fighting to preserve their moral independence,
just as in bygone times they fought to maintain their civil liberty.
They practise stern, antique virtues, are faithful to tradition and to
their friends ; but on the other hand easily prone to take offence, and
vindictive to a degree. They seem to accept life as a torture to be
The Place du Diamant at Ajaccio.
endured, or, at best, a stern duty to be performed. Poor and proud,
eager for combat, they are yet capable of noble sacrifices. The more
one knows them, the more one appreciates their good qualities, but
it is saddening to see so fine a race producing nothing of their own,
even in a country where nature has been so lavish of her gifts.
In no part of the world are such varieties of climate to be found
in so small an extent of country. Leaving the coast towns at
CORSICAN CHARACTERISTICS. 1 45
dawn, the traveller may in one day see tropical, temperate, and
alpine vegetation, traverse the dense scrub called the makis, lose
himself in virgin forests, cross fierce torrents, shudder in savage
gorges, and climb cloud-swept summits, to the verge of eternal
snows.
But nature alone has embellished Corsica. Of all the peoples
attracted in turn by its beauty or geographical position, not one has
left any permanent trace. Nor Romans, nor Goths, nor Arabs, nor
Genoese have left any mark of art or civilisation. The great men
who have appeared among the Corsicans themselves have all been
men of action or combat, — Sampiero, adventurer and warrior ; Paoli,
organiser, legislator, and soldier ; and Napoleon, the genius of war^
Not one has been illustrious in science, literature, or art. The
Corsicans are born fighters, and fighters they remain to their last
breath. To go a-soldiering is the height of the young Corsican's
ambition. When the troops march back from exercise, in the
morning, at Ajaccio, they are preceded by crowds of street-boys,
carrying sticks over their shoulders in place of guns, keeping step
and holding themselves often far more upright than the genuine
military article. When a battalion is quartered at a village, the
people are only too anxious to give them food and shelter. The
head of the family surrenders his bed to the soldier, and, if he
has no other, will sleep himself in the wood-shed or out in the
open air.
I remember being at a performance at the Saint Gabriel theatre
in Ajaccio, at which one of the chief attractions was a lightning-
transformation artist. Amid stolid silence, the comedian assumed
in turn every character from Punch to the Pope of Rome. At
length, suddenly buttoning his overcoat, and covering his head
with the traditional marshal's hat, he folded his hands behind his
back and assumed the historical attitude of Napoleon I., while,
behind the scenes, a bugle sounded " boot and saddle." The effect
was electrical, the entire audience rising to their feet and cheering
as one man.
One September afternoon during the Franco-Prussian war, a
lO
146
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
telegram reached Ajaccio announcing that the Emperor Napoleon III.
had gained a great victory and had taken forty thousand Germans
prisoners. When the telegram arrived, it happened that a procession
of the statue of Saint Roch was passing through the streets ; but no
sooner was the news circulated, than devoutness gave place to wild
enthusiasm. The holy image was hastily put down on the roadway,
and the crowd dispersed with shouts of joy. The men fetched their
Tower of "Capitello."
guns, with which they continued to fire salutes during the remainder
of the afternoon, and in the evening the town was illuminated.
Even the clergy took part in the general demonstration, and
poor Saint Roch lay forgotten for hours at the corner of the street
where he had been set down. On the morrow, however, an official
despatch announced the surrender at Sedan. Curses and impreca-
tions then succeeded the cheers of the previous day. Women became
hysterical or fainted in the streets, which were soon littered with
portraits of the Imperial family, thrown out of the windows by the
NAPOLEONIC SOUVENIRS. I47
enraged people. But the outburst of wrath subsided as rapidly as
it had arisen, and the houses were soon draped with mourning.
Black flags hung from every casement, traffic was stopped, the streets
were deserted, and Ajaccio became like a city of the dead.
The name of Ajaccio is derived from Ajax, by whom the town
is said to have been founded. But a better name would be
Napoleonville, for the figure of the great Emperor confronts one
at every turn. On the Place du Diamant you see him, accompanied
by his four brothers. On the market-place he stands alone, robed
in a Roman toga. Yonder, on the opposite side of the gulf, rises
the Capitello Tower, where Napoleon was invested by the insurgent
peasants under Paoli. For three days he remained alone in this
tower, surrounded by enemies, and with no better food than the flesh
of a dead horse. The birthplace of Napoleon, the Maison Bonaparte,
is a common-place, barrack-like building, but it contains the wooden
bedstead of Laetitia Bonaparte, and the sedan-chair in which the
Emperor's mother, when overtaken by the pangs of labour, was
conveyed home from the adjacent church. There are also an ivory
cradle brought home by Bonaparte from Egypt in 1799, and the
trap-door by which he fled in 1793, to escape from the followers of
the insurgent Paoli.
The Town Hall contains some striking portraits of the Imperial
family, and other relics are to be found at the museum in the Palais
FescJi.
Apart from its Napoleonic souvenirs, the town of Ajaccio, not-
withstanding its splendid situation, is not attractive. There are no
buildings of interest, and the houses are like barracks.
Seen from the deck of the steamer, the town appears to be just
emerging from a forest of olive trees, and advancing to the water's
edge to admire its own reflection, though that is not much to boast
of But beyond the outline of its common-place houses, and old
yellow fortress, rises tier upon tier of hills, culminating in snow-clad
mountain summits. The Gulf of Ajaccio is one of the most beautiful
in the world, combining the luxuriance of Sydney Harbour with the
ruggedness of a Norwegian fjord. The old women of Ajaccio will
148 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
tell you that from this harbour the witches, called mazzere, used
secretly to cross the sea in an ill-found fishing-boat to the African
coast, starting at sundown and returning at dawn with fresh bunches
of dates. The old women know, too, that the mazzere still exist, and
that, if you meet them at noonday in a solitary place, you will be
seen no more alive ; with one glance of their small blinking eyes,
the mazzere will have drunk up your soul.
The climate of Ajaccio deserves to be better known. The
vegetation indicates a climate hotter than that of Cannes or Nice,
but the air is remarkably dry, and, in winter, so bracing, that highly
nervous people cannot support such constant stimulation.
The environs are charming, whether you ascend the heights
inland, or confine your walks to following the coast-line towards the
lies Sanguinaires, along a delightfully shady road, where vistas of
the sea are caught between the pines and olive trees.
Another pleasant resort is the beach, especially in the early
morning, when the fishermen, great brawny fellows like Florentine
bronzes, are drawing in their nets.
If you are at Ajaccio. in Lent, do not miss the funeral of King
Carnival, which is followed by all the boys in the place, beating
a formidable requiem with sticks, on barrels for drums. Every
day you will see penitents following ordinary funerals. While
the women of Ajaccio cannot be called beautiful, their pale
faces are generally distinguished by a certain nobility and energy
of expression. They seldom go out of doors, however, and then
generally of an evening, when they promenade on the Place du
Diamant.
But Ajaccio nowadays is not Corsica. It is too cosmopolitan, too
like other towns, though pleasing enough as a residence for the
pleasure-seeker or the invalid. I only stayed a few days, therefore,
and then started for the interior, making first for the Coscione, a
wild, primitive district where the monotony of existence is relieved
by bandits and vendettas
Accordingly, one morning found me in a light carriage, driven by
a young Corsican named Anto, proceeding on the first stage of my
TO THE REAL CORSICA.
151
journey. For about a mile and a half the road skirted the gulf,
bordered by an avenue of trees, through which the eye caught
flashing glimpses of a sapphire and emerald sea, where the white sails
glided past towards the haven, and the gulls fluttered down upon the
waves like a cloud of white butterflies. Now and then we passed a
milkmaid, or a
woman of Alata, - , -^Ht ^^^^^^
wearing an im- ^ rV ---^ ^^>^.
m e n s e straw
hat.
After leaving
the shore and
crossing the
Canipo del Oro
(field of gold), a
small fertile
plain formed by
the alluvial de-
posits of the
Graven a, we en-
tered a narrow
valley, and, at
one plunge,
seemed to pass
out of civilisa-
tion. The coun-
t r y - s i d e was
deserted ; and if
we did chance
upon a casual wayfarer, it was a Corsican on horseback, dressed in
black velvet or clad in goat-skin, and holding his gun across his
saddle. Wooden crosses were to be seen at intervals on the side
of the road, and caused me an involuntary shudder, for each one
marked the scene of a murder.
Then came a long rise of nine miles, in course of which we passed
Suarella.
152 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
close by the picturesque village of Suarella, where there is a huge
tree, on the branches of which a two-storey dwelling has been
constructed.
The immense circle of the valley below loomed dimly through
a heat haze, from which rose reddish hills streaked with perpendicular
shadows.
It was in the gorges behind Suarella, that Sampiero Corso,
ancestor of the Marshals d'Ornano, and one of the bravest com-
manders of his day, was treacherously murdered.
The son of a shepherd of Bastelica, Sampiero left Corsica as a
soldier of adventure, and having served under the famous John de
Medicis, won, in the service of France, during the reigns of Francis L
and Henri II., the rank of niestre decamp and colonel. Bethinking
him of his native isle, then under the yoke of the Genoese, he
conceived the idea of wresting it from the Italians and incorporating
it with France. With this object he returned to Corsica, where the
entire population responded to his call to arms. After gaining some
successes, he went to the Levant, and, in his absence, some Genoese
messengers persuaded his wife Vanina to go to Genoa to obtain the
restitution of the estate of Ornano, which had been confiscated..
Believing that she was acting in the interests of her children, she
embarked with her youngest son on a felucca one dark night and
shaped her course for Italy. But she was stopped off Antibes by
a trusted friend of her husband and conveyed to Aix in Provence.
Sampiero on his return, believing that she had sought to betray his
children into the hands of the Genoese, had her arrested and con-
demned to death. The sentence was to have been carried out by
Turkish slaves ; but the poor woman, throwing herself at her
husband's feet, said that, if she must die, she would rather that her
life were taken away by the man whom she had chosen for husband
on account of his bravery. The stern Sampiero thereupon tied a
handkerchief round her neck and strangled her.
A few years later, on January 17th, 1567, Sampiero fell into a
Genoese ambuscade near Suarella. Suddenly surrounded by enemies,.
he drew his sword to defend himself, when one of his squires, named
ACROSS THE PASS. 1 53
Vittolo, bribed, it is supposed, by the relatives of Vanina, fired an
arquebus at his back, and he fell, mortally wounded. His body was
hacked to pieces by the Genoese, and his head was taken to the
Governor of Fornari. When news of his death reached Genoa,
the bells were rung and salutes fired to celebrate the event.
To this day, the name of Vittolo is a synonym for traitor, and
no more grievous insult can be given to a Corsican than to call him
by this name.
After passing the village of Cauro the road continued to ascend,
and the carriage went so slowly that the mule-bells scarcely tinkled.
The driver, in a guttural voice, sang an old lamento : —
" A^elle monte di Coscio?ie nato ciera una zitella
E la so ca?-a ?nam?no?ia gli faceva la nanarella
Adormeiitati parpena alegreza di manmiona."
A puff of wind carried away the remainder of the song. A lash
of the whip made the mules shake their heads, and we reached the
top of the pass of San Giorgio, where the air was cooler than in
the suffocating valley.
Looking backwards, I caught a distant glimpse of one of the
promontories of Sardinia, floating upon a sea as bright as molten
metal. Before us, the road descended in rapid zigzags to the valley
of the Taravo, where the white houses of Santa Maria d'Ornano
gleamed amid evergreen holms.
After a brief rest at the inn, where I was served with some
delicious broccio^ 1 walked down to the hamlet, where the maiden-
home of Vanina, the unhappy wife of Sampiero, raises its scarred
fa9ade beyond a broken drawbridge.
From Santa Maria d'Ornano to Zicavo, our next stage, the
landscape is sombre and forest clad, recalling the pictures of Poussin
and Salvator Rosa. The former artist is said to have worked in
this district, and at Rome there are ten studies from nature which
might certainly have been made at Ornano. It is a country of
simple sweeping lines, — dark masses of woodland throwing opaque
154
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
shadows, forest clearings strewn with fallen timber or threaded by
amber-coloured streams, and, in the background, the broken slopes
of verdant hills. It is the lucus of the Latin poets, the sacred
woodland, where the shepherd plays his pipes as he watches his
flocks, and the faun hides to peep at a sleeping nymph or a
goddess emerging from her bath.
Daylight was fading as we crept up the steep ascent to Zicavo.
At Giutera the sunlight still
lingered on the tops of the
trees, but it was twilight when
we crossed the Taravo, which
murmured far below in a chaos
of blanched rocks. The water
at this hour gleamed like cold
steel. The slopes of the hills
looked larger in the shadows,
and the trees were etched in
ebony against a pale sky, in
which one star was timidly
beginning to shine.
The road grew steeper
and steeper, and the mules
panted heavily. Their hard
breathing and the turmoil of
rushing waters were the only
sounds. Sharp rocks sur-
rounded us like threatening
armies. On one side was a deep gorge, where fallen trees hung
their twisted branches over the edge of the precipice. Occasional
gleams in the nether darkness seemed like reflections from the scales
of some vast serpent.
"Where the deuce are we coming to? Where is the village,
Anto ? "
Anto smiled and pointed to a cluster of lights on the slope of
the mountain.
House of Vanina d'Ornano.
THE MELANCHOLY INN. 1 55
" Yonder is Zicavo," said he, " and the serpent down below us
there is the Molina torrent."
We plunged for a few moments into the darkness of a chestnut
wood, and, as the trees fell back, saw the dull gleam of charcoal
brasiers through open doorways. Wild-looking men, carrying guns
over their shoulders, and bearing torches of resinous pine, came out
to glance at the strangers. The weird yellow glare lit up their
sallow cheeks and glittered in their black eyes. Yet each and all
greeted us with, " Bona notte^
We crossed a small square and drew up in front of the inn.
Its aspect was not encouraging. In the darkness it appeared little
better than a ruin, with yawning window-spaces and cloistral arches,
from which hung tufts of wild grass. Nothing stirred, and no light
was visible. The only sound was the lugubrious murmur of the
wind in the chestnuts.
" Hi, Peretti, hi ! " called Anto.
Thereupon a slow footstep echoed under the ruined arches, and
a flickering light, held by a gaunt arm, vaguely illuminated a sort
of stone balcony reached by rickety wooden steps.
Sheepfolds at Palaghiole.
CHAPTER II.
At Zicavo. — The Cascade of Camera. — Strange Superstitions. — Vampires and
Demon Hounds. — Forest Fires. — Schiopetto^ stiletto^ strada. — The Vendetta. —
The Vocero. — A Dance of Death.
WHEN the first sun-rays made me open my eyes next morning,
I found myself on a truckle-bed in a sort of monastic cell.
I quickly dressed and hurried downstairs to examine the outside of
the inn. My eyes had not deceived mc on the previous night. The
building was indeed a ruined Franciscan monastery, turned to more
modern, if not more practical, use as a hostelry. In what was left
of the church I noticed some half-opened tombs. Bleaching bones
lay here and there, objects of derisive curiosity to some black pigs,
who were now grunting in the sacred enclosure which formerly
echoed to the chants of the monks.
I spent the remainder of the day wandering about the village
and its environs. The township of Zicavo, for it is more of a town-
ship than a village, consists of a number of scattered houses, perched
upon the steep side of a mountain, but surrounded by gardens and
orchards, and overhung by umbrageous chestnuts. The sound of
falling water replaces the hum of industry, and wherever one turns
one sees little cascades gleaming like streaks of quicksilver in the
156
IN THE HEART OF THE HILLS. 1 57
shade of the rocks and trees. From the altitude of Zicavo the eye
overlooks an intricate system of mountain gorges, where small
hamlets nestle in the velvet of rich vegetation, while the prospect is
bounded by a rampart of wild rocks. Savage, lonely, characteristic,
Zicavo is in the heart of old Corsica, the country of vendettas,
bandits, and strange superstitions.
The Molina, the stream which flows past Zicavo, is a perfect
type of the mountain torrent, a rocky stairway for the hurrying
water, where cascade follows upon cascade, with here and there a
treacherous pool, almost too dark to reflect the trees upon the banks.
To follow up the course of the stream is to make a voyage of dis-
covery. Here, at the foot of a precipice, opens a cool, green grotto,
whose verdant darkness is the home of all manner of capricious
plants, dewy with the moisture dripping from the roof Little flowers
in tears, bend and rise again as the crystal drops fall and then roll
off the petals, like the scattered beads of a broken necklace of pearls.
From a fissure in the rock a jet of water is constantly playing and
trickling back to the parent stream.
Continue the journey up the gorge and you come to the cascade
of Camera, where the torrent falls from a height of some hundred
and twenty feet, not in one desperate leap, but tumbling and slipping
over a chaos of rocks, bluish in tint and burnished by the boulders
which are rolled over its surface in times of winter flood. High
above in the mist of the fall, a second cascade, but of forest, rolls
down in green waves from the ridge of the mountain. The sunlight
glitters and scintillates on leaf, rock, and water. A bare-legged
fisherman springs from rock to rock, and at length brings to bank
a shimmering, quivering trout.
On the 6th of August, after a day of suflbcating heat, the moun-
tains veiled themselves at evening in mufflers of mist. As the day
waned the fog crept down to the ravines and blotted them from
view, while the moon, at its rising, was dim and blood-red as in an
eclipse.
1 was standing outside, when the woman of the inn came up to
me, saying, —
158 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
" I should not advise you, sir, to stand out like this in these evil
fogs. They are peopled by Gramanter
I looked at her in surprise, but she gazed on me sadly for a
moment, and then withdrew without a word.
"What are these Graniante}'' I inquired of an old fisherman
who was passing.
He bade me follow him to his house, where he made me sit
down, and, as night had fallen, lighted a torch of pine.
" The murmur of waters," said he, " the hooting of owls, the flight
of birds, the vague noises heard by night, the hum of evening insects,
the shape of clouds, the sound of the wind, in fact, all the forms
and all the sounds of nature have a meaning for those who know
how to observe and understand. Our ancestors, who were ever on
the watch, dwellers of the forest, learned to read the book of nature,
and could even foretell the future. The present generation no longer
dwell in such close communion with nature, and do not listen to
her voice. In those clouds, now falling upon the mountain and
about to enshroud the village, the evil spirits called Graviante are
making ready to swathe themselves, and to come down with the
mist. Do not expose yourself to their evil influence. The doors
must be kept shut, and every one in the house must be provided
with holy- water.
" Man is not alone on the earth," he continued. " Besides the
animals, there are also the elements which suffer and weep, and
beings which our senses cannot perceive, but which assuredly exist.
Take, for instance, the streghi, or vampires. They are shapes like
old women, which enter the house by night without being seen, and,
fastening on the throats of little children, drink their blood. In
the old days, the horrible creatures were sometimes seen, but
nowadays they are invisible, and the death of the little ones is the
only sign of their presence. ' Beware the streghi ! ' say the women
of our mountains to each other at bedtime, and some keep under
their pillow an old billhook or sickle to kill the vampires.
" The Acciacatori are equally dangerous, and their very name
inspires terror. They are men, like you or I, who during the day
The Cascade of Camera.
SPECTRES AND WRAITHS. l6l
follow their usual occupations, or walk abroad. At night they go
to bed like the rest of us, but their body alone sleeps. Their spirit,
horribly awake, hurries to wait in ambush by the cross-roads in
some wild ravine, and there, armed with an invisible hatchet, it
attacks belated travellers or wandering pilgrims, whose bodies are
found next day, stretched on the ground, with their skulls
battered in."
The Acctacatori, I thought, are probably merely peasants fulfilling
a vendetta ; but the aged fisherman continued his recital of terror.
" You have heard of the demon hounds ! " said he. " Sometimes
furious baying is heard, and an invisible pack of hounds rushes
into the deeps of the valleys. The baying grows fainter in the
distance, then a cry of agony smites the listener's ear, and then
there is silence. When the listener can recognise the voice which
uttered the cry, it is an infallible sign of the death of this person.
Sometimes, the baying of the hounds resembles the lamentations
of the women who mourn for the dead, and it is a token that death
will soon visit the village.
"The Spirdo is another presage to be reckoned with. If a person
comes to meet you in the street and you mistake him for somebody
else, it is the spirit, Spirdo, of the other which has manifested itself,
and he will die within the week. Nevertheless, if the person coming
towards you take a rising street or road, he will escape danger ;
but if he descend, a fatal issue is inevitable."
I was told of many other strange beliefs in Corsica ; for instance,
the drum heard at midnight, indicating the early death of one of
the village-folk : the spectral voices which call those about to die :
the spectres which go in procession at night from the cemetery, and
recite the rosary at the door of the sick and the dying.
I heard many another story in the house of the old fisherman,
tales of battle, of wonderful wild-sheep, wild-boar, or stag hunts on
the neighbouring Coscione, of severe winters when flocks of mouflons
(wild sheep) were driven by the snow to take refuge in the peasant's
stables.
One of the most singular sights was to see the villagers watering
II
l62
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
their gardens at night by torch-h'ght. The people are very poor,
and scarcely know the use of lanterns, instead of which they employ
torches of resinous pine. In the old times, the peasants were even
worse off than they are now. Thus at Zicavo, the men only began
to wear shoes at
the age of twenty,
— and such shoes !
mere soles of pig-
skin fastened to
the feet by a wool-
len ligament.
Even these were
only worn in
winter. In sum-
mer the men went
barefoot.
It is recounted
as a sign of im-
mense wealth, that
at a certain mar-
riage - feast the
bridegroom p r o -
vided each of the
hundred guests
with a bag of bar-
ley for his horse.
These nosebags,
called narpia, are
made of pigskin,
which is in general
use throughout Corsica, cow-leather being a rarity.
The girls of Zicavo are undeniably handsome, and are very indus-
trious. It is a pretty sight to see them filling their water-jars at the
spring. They are usually grave of expression, but they have always
a smile for the foreigner — the " continental," as they call him in Corsica.
Girl of Zicavo.
WOODLAND LORE. 163
The Corsicans quite worship springs. As in the West Highlands,
there are wayside wells by every mountain path, and it is rare not to
come upon some one resting in the vicinity. The horse's bridle is
slung over a branch, the gun leans against a tree trunk, and the pass-
ing traveller or muleteer, or possibly bandit, has engineered a sort of
channel with leaves. Some springs are reputed to have curative pro-
perties. This, on the homoeopathic principle, cures dropsy : that is so
cold that it freezes any object placed in its water. On the road to
San Pietro di Verde (Saint Peter of the Greenwood) there is a spring
at the foot of an ancient chestnut, of which every wayfarer religiously
tastes. You may be perspiring profusely, but the water will do you
no harm ; so say the country folk, at least.
Further on, a path winds through the valleys to a torrent, the
bed of which is a litter of mossy rocks. This place is famous for
its giant chestnuts, many of which measure twelve yards in girth.
The chestnut trees near the village of Zicavo are all gashed with
axe-cuts or riddled with bullets. The trunks are used as targets
by the young men, who always shoot with ball, the game of the
neighbourhood being generally insensible to shot, for the quarry
is usually either the mouflon or the wild boar, not to speak of the
man-hunts, which are perhaps more frequent
Many quaint superstitions are now dying out. The fire
enchanters, for instance, are gradually being forgotten. These were
witches, who laid spells, not only on fire, but also on water, animals,
and even men. They could draw out the sting of a venomous insect.
Robbers had recourse to them to enchant dogs, so that they should
not bark when the bandits went by night to rob some outlying farm
or wealthy household.
Belief in the jettatura, or evil eye, is still, widespread. When
a mother thinks that her child is innochiatOy or struck by the evil eye,
she calls in an old woman, expert in the art of conjuring the spell.
The method of exorcism is quite dramatic. The old woman crosses
herself thrice, mutters a secret prayer, lights an iron lamp, and pours
water into a plate. Still muttering, she places the plate on the head
of the child, plunges two fingers in the oil of the lamp, and lets a few
l64 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
drops fall in the water. According to the manner in which these
fall, she tells whether the child is delivered or not from the spell.
The manner of discovering whether a child is suffering from
worms is equally curious. The old wife places a ball of lead in
an empty iron lamp, which is then placed on red-hot coals. When
the lead is melted, she pours it out on a plate of water, crossing herself
thrice and murmuring some cabalistic words. If the metal on
contact with the water breaks up into small streaks, the child is
suffering from a helminthic complaint. If the lead does not separate,
it has some other disease, to be discovered by different means.
• Eggs laid on Ascension Day are carefully kept to safeguard the
house from lightning, sickness, and other evils. When a storm comes,
the people hasten to place these eggs in the windows to secure the
safety of the house. An equal virtue resides in bread, blessed in
church, on the feast days of Saint Peter, Saint Anthony, or Saint
Roch. These loaves are displayed with the eggs during thunder-
storms. They are also given to cure sick animals, and are thrown
upon a fire to extinguish the flames.
A forest fire is an exciting event.
One afternoon I heard the tocsin ringing wildly, and looking out
of my window, saw thick clouds of smoke rising from the slopes of
the mountain above. Men were running from house to house to
fetch hatchets, and hurrying away to the forest to render assistance.
Voices rang from the heights, " Al foco ! Al foco ! " (" Fire ! Fire ! ")^
They sounded as if the people were already being suffocated, and
all the while the bell kept ringing the alarm.
I begged Perreti, the landlord, to find me a mule, and was soon
following the villagers up the mountain path to the scene of the
conflagration. After a wild climb of an hour's duration, alongside
rushing torrents and on the brink of giddy chasms, I arrived opposite
the burning mountain.
I could hear the crackling of the flames, and see the living trees
twisting and curling as if in throes of agony, rising up in one
desperate, final effort to survive, and then coming down with a
crash and breaking to pieces in a shower of sparks and blazing
Giant Chestnuts.
FOREST FIRES. 167
iragments. A continuous roaring dominated all minor sounds, and
columns of acrid, grey smoke rolled steadily skyward. In a clearing
above, I saw men and women bravely fighting the flames, looking
much like pigmies striving to do the work of a giant. But the
intelligence of the pigmies triumphed, and a stream, diverted from
its course, presently poured over the mountain declivity, raising
clouds of steam, but gradually extinguishing the fire.
The day had been very hot, however, and the firing of the
forest was not confined to one locality. That night, the sky was
lurid with the glare from similar conflagrations in several directions.
Corsica loses thousands of valuable old trees every year by these
fires. Between 1874 and 1886 a ninth part of all the timber in
the island was destroyed, and between 1878 and 1886 there were
ninety-one fires which devoured over two thousand acres of State
forest.
But to return to Zicavo. Cloudless days succeeded each other
with almost monotonous regularity, and each one disclosed some
fresh charm in that book of nature which the old fisherman had
spoken of as closed to the present generation, but which we moderns
peruse in a more inspiriting fashion. The children of the village
are very fond of bathing, and parties of boys were constantly to
be seen disporting themselves in the quieter reaches of the torrent,
where the sunrays, striking through the leafy branches, or reflected
by the water, made strange play of shifting light on their glistening
bodies. Their favourite resort was a sort of rocky conch-shell,
framed in moss and glistening foliage. A tiny cascade, falling
through a fissure, just rippled the calm expanse of the pool, the
waters of which were so clear that the eye could follow to the very
bottom the little bronzed figures, who used to throw themselves off
the top of the rocks and tumble about in the cool depths like young
tritons at play.
Sunset always lighted a pretty pastoral picture of flocks re-
turning home. The goats were particularly handsome, with shining
coats of all colours, from ebony blackness to purest white, with
gradations of lilac and brown in between. The tinkling of the
l68 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
goat bells, the rustle of the torrent, the cry of belated birds, and
distant calls from the mountains, all made a characteristic farewell
to the sun sinking behind the rim of the forest. And as the light
died away, the shepherds, shouldering their guns, descended the
steep paths among the blocks of granite, now disappearing behind
the roots of a giant chestnut, now standing out like martial statues
against a primrose sky.
Few things impressed me more at Zicavo than the number of
armed men I met on the mountain paths, and even in the streets
of the township. The municipal councillors even brought their guns
to the Town Hall, though leaving them outside while they attended
the sittings of the Council.
The sight of these guns gave one a sensation, not of fear, for
strangers are rarely molested in Corsica, but of an alien, melo-
dramatic environment. Sometimes, at dusk, I would come upon
a man lurking in the shadows, with eyes as watchful as if he were
looking out for an enemy.
" When one has an enemy," runs the Corsican saying, " one must
choose between the three S's — schiopetto, stiletto, strada : rifle, dagger,
or flight." And again, " There are two presents to be made to an
enemy — />a//a calda ox ferru fredda : hot shot or cold steel."
When a certain justice of the peace, named Bonaldi, was acquitted
of wounding a peasant named Franchi with a pistol shot, the
prosecutor observed, " The jury absolves, but / condemn."
When a Corsican takes the law into his own hands and slays his
adversary, he is spoken of much in the same way as other people
talk of the victor in a duel. He is a man under a cloud, to be pitied,
or even secretly admired for his courage, but never to be blamed.
He has earned the absolute fidelity of his relatives and of his
** clan " ; if he becomes a bandit, he is fed, and protected against the
ambuscades laid by the gendarmes. Every one is in league to save
him from the grip of the law ; and if he should happen to be arrested,
no stone is left unturned to secure his acquittal.
Their fighting instinct gives the men of Corsica a sombre expres-
sion ; but the women also, veiled by their black mezzaro, have a look
THE WOMEN S EYES.
169
The Widow.
of sadness in their eyes, though these occasionally light up with a
cold brilliancy, like the flash of a dagger.
170 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
Visit the spring whence the women of the village draw water
morning and evening. You are fascinated by their graceful attitudes
and the harmonious folds of their dark draperies. Yet only last year
this same spring was the scene of a bloody drama. A pitched battle
took place between two hostile families, and in a moment four men
bit the dust. The parish priest, who was passing, hurried to
administer the last consolations to the fallen, but he was too late.
They were already dead. Then the brave ecclesiastic stood up
between the living, offering his breast to their bullets and daggers,
and, speaking of the God who pardons, succeeded in preventing
more bloodshed.
The murderers took to the bush, and as the families at feud
counted many members, it was feared that other murders would
follow. The rnost influential people in the country, the Abbatucci,
the Colonna of Istria, and others intervened, however, and the
members of both families were convened at the Church of AuUene.
The bells were rung, the Blessed Sacrament was exposed, a Te Deurn
was sung, and the enemies signed a treaty of peace on the altar, in
presence of a crowd of the country folk.
There was a woman at Zicavo who was always smiling. Gracious
and bright, her aspect differed completely from that of her com-
panions. Yet I learned that she always carried a dagger, and used
to say to her brothers, " It is not for you to help in accomplishing
my revenge. I am quite capable of doing it myself ! "
She had been widowed, and had a vendetta to fulfil. The know-
ledge of a mission to accomplish was an antidote to her grief Her
husband was not dead to her, as long as she had his death to
avenge. From the subject of vendettas, the transition is easy to
the matter of death.
At twilight, one August evening, I heard the bell tolling, and
learned that a woman had just died in the village. A procession
of women clad in black, wearing the mezzaro or faldetta on their
heads, moved silently towards the house of mourning. Within that
house, as soon as the last breath had gone from the body, the fire
was extinguished, the shutters were closed, and the relatives uttered
THE HOUSE OF DEATH.
r/i
heartrending cries, tearing- their hair and scarring their faces with
their finger nails. As soon as the neighbours reached the house,
some of the women set about getting ready the deceased's best
clothes to dress the body, while others sang the voceri, chants of
mourning i m -
pro vised inverse.
The singing con-
tinued till the
A n g e 1 u s bell
rang, when the
neighbours de-
parted, only the
relatives and in-
timate friends
remaining in the
house after
nightfall.
It was for-
merly the cus-
tom to let three
days elapse with-
out rekindling
the fire, opening
the windows, or
preparing any
food, but this
observance has
been abandoned,
at Zicavo at
least, and now-
adays a mid-
night repast is served in the death-chamber itself The table on
which the body is laid out, however, is not used again for domestic
purposes for the space of eight days.
At six o'clock the next morning, I heard the church bell again
A Man of Zicavo.
172
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
tolling, and at once went outside. The valley was still obscured by
mist, but the mountain tops were gilded by the first rays of the
rising sun. I directed my steps to the house of mourning, and,
through the open doorway, saw, by the paling glimmer of resinous
torches, the body of the deceased woman laid out upon a table, clad
in her marriage robes. She had died of consumption, and the
emaciated, ivory-coloured face, now so full of majestic repose, seemed
like a vision against the sombre walls of the interior. Presently
the table was lifted, carried outside, and set down in front of the
door, while some children carefully laid a few flowers on the body.
It was a strange spectacle at that brilliant hour of reawakening life
to see this quiet figure clad in a wedding garment, as if to celebrate
her union with death, the face and hands rigid and yellow against
the white sheet laid underneath, while grave women stood round, all
clad in black, all motionless as statues, and some with their raven
hair falling over their shoulders like funeral veils. Under the cold,
bright sky of early morning, weeping eyes seemed redder, tears more
bitter, and faces paler than by the mellow glow of artificial light.
Inside the house, by the empty hearth, the candles were guttering
out, and seemed to be shedding great tears of wax.
A voceratrice, with hair as dishevelled and face as pale as that of
an inspired priestess of old, improvised a funeral hymn, interrupted
from time to time by the sobs of the onlookers.
" Listen ! " said she, leaning over the body as she sang : —
' Chi no consulera ?nai,
O speranza di a to mamma,
Ava chi tu ti 7ie vat
Duve u Signer ti chiamma ?
Oh / Perche 11 SigJtor a7ichellu
Ebbe di te tanta bramma ?
* Ma tii^ ti ripose in celu,
Ttitta festa e tiitta risu.
Perche un nera degmi u mondu
Uave cusi bellu visii ?
Oh ! Quantu sara piii hcllu
A vale u Paradisu !'' etc.
' Who shall ever console us,
O thou, thy mother's hope,
Now that thou dost go,
Summoned by the Saviour ?
Oh ! why hath He, the Lord,
Desired thee so greatly?
But thou in Heaven now resteth.
All joyful and all smiles.
Was earth perchance unworthy
To hold so sweet a face ?
Ah ! More beautiful is now
Thy face in Paradise ! " etc.
A CORSICAN FUNERAL. I 73
And while the voceratrice is singing, the women put their mouths
to the ear of the dead and talk in a low voice, as if they were still
heard, while, from time to time, they press their lips to the cold brow.
At intervals, new arrivals, raising their arms to the sky, uttered
heartrending cries and threw themselves on the body in a frenzy
of farewell. Thus interrupted by groans and sobs and sudden out-
bursts of grief, the voceratrice continued singing, until she was out of
breath and signed to one of her companions to replace her.
The scene was painfully impressive, and no one could dispute
that, however sober in their joys, the Corsicans know how to render
death a terribly dramatic spectacle.
The contrast between the mourners and the brightness of nature
added to the effect. The sunlight gradually spread in golden bands
down the mountain slopes and the wooded highlands, till the ample
rays embraced the entire valley. The sobs accompanying the doleful
chanting were themselves accompanied by the twittering of birds
and the cheerful chatter of falling waters.
At length the priest arrived, and grave men placed the body in
the coffin to convey it to the church. The voceratrices gave one
final scream of anguish ; and the lugubrious procession moved up the
sun-flecked pathway, and paused beneath the dappled shadows of
the chestnut trees.
Now for a time came silence, broken only by the low voice of
the priest as he read the burial-service ; but no sooner had he con-
cluded, than the relatives uttered piercing cries and threw themselves
on the body, which they covered with kisses and strained fiercely
to their breasts in a last embrace.
The lid was then nailed on the coffin, and the tap-tapping of the
hammer seemed even more terrible than the wailing of the mourners.
The latter spoke of the grief of the living, but the former of the
helplessness of the dead.
No ! A Corsican funeral is not an inspiriting ceremony, and after
a murder the scenes of despair are even more violent than that
above described.
When a man has been killed by the bullet or dagger of an
174 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
enemy, the body, with the face exposed, is laid on a table ; his
friends flock to the house, and the gridatu (mourning) begins.
At first there is a storm 'of grief, crossed, as if by lightning, by
burning oaths of vengeance. Men draw their daggers and knock
the floor with the butt-ends of their rifles, while the women wave
their handkerchiefs and soak them in the wounds of the murdered
victim. Presently a sort of vertigo seizes upon the assembly, and,
taking hands, they dance round the corpse, jerking out the words
of the lyke-wake dirge called the Caracolu.
Intense silence follows this frenzy. Then one of the women
relatives of the deceased stalks forward and lays her ear against
the chill lips of the dead, as if to receive his orders. Then, in a
vibrating voice, she intones the vocero, — no solemn funeral hymn
this, telling of human sorrow giving place to heavenly joys, but a
battle-song, set to a clipped, breathless rhythm, which seems to keep
time with the beating of her heart. She begins by addressing the
relatives of the dead, and urges them to descend on the murderers
like vultures upon their prey. The appeal for the vendetta has
commenced, and its effect upon her hearers is like that of a tocsin.
Rifles and daggers tremble in the hands of the men, and at nightfall
a son or a brother goes forth on a mission of vengeance into the
dark depths of the forest.
Sometimes, with a strange contrast, prayers are interwoven with
the appeal for vengeance, like a scapular round the neck of a bandit,
or the daggers of the Middle Ages, which often had the Pater Noster
and Ave Maria inscribed on their blades.
At Zicavo interments are not confined to the cemetery, which,
to tell the truth, is a dreary spot ravaged by winter rains — the
scumbapio, or rains of the dead, as they are called. Burial crosses are
to be met with everywhere : on mountain bypaths, under the chestnut
trees, and on the borders of the fields, even by the highway side.
After a death the deceased's dogs often betake themselves to the
grave, where they howl for days and scratch at the earth to get
at their masters. Some of the poor animals cause such alarm in
the village by their nightly baying that they have to be shot.
PIGS, BONES, AND HALTERS.
175
Not many years
have passed since it
was the practice in
many parts of Corsica
to throw the bodies
into the charnel-pit,
dressed in their best
clothes, but without
coffins. The charnel-
pit of Zicavo was in
the old ruined church
opposite the inn,
where I had seen
the pigs rooting
among the bones.
The pigs of Zi-
cavo, it must be re-
marked, are not at
all the mild domestic-
looking creatures of
ordinary farms. With
their black, bristling
crests and white
tusks, they are more
like wild boars. In
order to prevent them
getting into the gar-
dens they all wear
triangular iron collars,
and pitiably ashamed
some of the poor
creatures look in these
ridiculous necklaces.
'k
he Pigs of Zicavo.
Sheepfolds of Frauletto.
CHAPTER III.
Pastoral Life. — A Strange Encounter in the Forest. — Shepherd-lore. — Ossianic Verse.
— The Ghastly Horseman. — On the Incudine. — A Meeting with Bandits. —
Vengeance and Hospitality.
AFTER so many terrible impressions of death and violence, I
felt a longing for softer scenes. At the same time 1 was glad
that I had witnessed the wilder and more savage side of Corsican
character. To visit Ajaccio, Bastia, or Calvi, in fact, any of the
coast-towns, is not to see Corsica. To get at the real characteristics
of the country it is necessary to penetrate into the mountains, bury
oneself in the forests of the Coscione of San Pietro di Verde, or
to ascend the heights of the Incudine, Mount Cintho, or San Angelo.
On the slopes of these mountains are remote hamlets where the
people change almost as little as the eternal hills themselves, and
higher yet, towards the summits, are nomad, pastoral tribes with
special customs, which have not altered for centuries.
Corsica does not reveal itself to the traveller who merely crosses
the island ; manners and customs escape him, and he even misses
many of the sublimest landscapes. *
Now, if one could only become a shepherd for a few weeks,
pass beyond the forest-border and climb to the cloud-swept heights,
176
A MOUNTAIN ARCADY. I 77
where the eye may roam over the distant sea to the far-away outline
of Asinara and the blue undulations of Sardinia, life up there,
methought, would be a natural joy ! To be awakened of a morning
by the sound of the goat-bells, to walk the heights in the first
freshness of dawn, and, from some lofty rock, see the sun majestically
upspringing from the Tyrrhenian Sea. To stand thus, as it were,
on an island in the sea of mist covering the lowlands, to be alone
with the sun and infinite space, would be to have the sensation of
being the firstborn in a new world.
The day is spent, perhaps, with a man, known in the lower world
as a bandit. Such fine moral distinctions do not hold on this lofty
plane, and you pass many hours very pleasantly in his company,
having a stray shot at a stag or a wild boar, or stopping at a crystal
stream to catch a trout, which, with a portion of roast kid, a draught
of milk, and delicious broccio, will form the evening meal. And when
the moon rises and the distant baying of farm dogs answers the
roaring of the stags, pipes are lit, and you lie comfortably round
the fire, while the shepherds recite whole stanzas of Tasso or Ariosto,
and tell strange stories of wild superstition. Then, when your eyelids
grow heavy, you wTap yourself about in your pelojte or goat-skin
cloak, on a bed of beech leaves, and sleep soundly on the lap of
mother-earth, with your feet outstretched to the wood fire.
I made my first ascent of Mount Incudine in August. The
nights were still warm, and there was every prospect of obtaining
a clear view\
I was awakened before daybreak by a handful of gravel rattling
against my wdndow, and, on looking out, could just discern the
mules, hitched to the broken arches of the old cloister, attended by
the guide, who had his gun on his shoulder and a long fishing line
in his hand. We were well provided with guides, for a young man
from the village volunteered to accompany us for the mere pleasure
of the expedition, while Peretti, the innkeeper, and his two sons also
formed part of the escort.
Besides myself, there were also the doctor of Zicavo, and the
advocate Bucchini, his brother. Both were rather late in arriving,
12
178 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
for in Corsica, as in the Balearic Isles, what George Eliot describes
as " fine, old-fashioned leisure " is not yet banished, and nothing is
undertaken without due preparation and consideration, not even
getting out of bed.
The sun had been up some time, when the cavalcade started,
followed by a sumpter mule carrying provisions for two or three days,
a very necessary part of one's equipment for an expedition to the
mountains, where food is hard to obtain, while the appetite is
sharpened by the bracing air.
Taking a short cut, we climbed an extraordinarily steep ascent,
where even the rocks seemed only held in position by the twisted
roots of the giant chestnuts. Having surmounted this, we regained
the road, and a few moments later the falls of Camera flashed
through the foam clouds, in the gorge beneath. In strong contrast
with this luminous apparition, we next crossed the entrance to the
savage gorge of Siccia Porco, an arid avalanche of boulders, and
soon afterwards entered the chestnut forest, where the sunlight filtered
through the leaves, and gave the trunks of the trees and the moss-
grown rocks the sheen of green velvet.
On leaving the forest, still following the bridle-track, we crossed
a bare plateau, whence we saw sparrow-hawks circling against the
clouds, or gazed to the blue horizon of the distant sea. Beyond this,
again came the forest, though, at this height, the chestnut and the
ilex, or evergreen oak, had given place to the beech and the hardy
English oak.
Here a characteristically Corsican incident occurred. We had
just crossed a rocky torrent in the heart of the forest, and I was
riding in front with the doctor, when five men suddenly appeared
on the other side of a clearing. At the same moment we heard
the click of the triggers, and all five levelled their guns at us. But,
seeing that we were peaceable, they soon lowered the weapons, and
advanced in silence, passing us by, without even the greeting
customary between all wayfarers. The incident befell so quickly
that we might have been shot, almost without being aware
of it.
THE VIRGIN FOREST. 1 79
" What are they ? " I inquired of the doctor. " Why did they
aim at us?"
" I don't know," said Bucchini. " They are strangers to the
district, and, as you saw, act instinctively on the defensive. Depend
upon it they have serious reason to do so."
At midday, when the birds were silent and even in the shadow of
the dense verdure there was no trace of coolness, we alighted at the
humble hermitage of San Pietro, where we lunched on the greensward,
seated round a spring at the foot of a beech tree.
The chapel of San Pietro was built about the year 1500, in
reparation for a vendetta perpetrated on this spot. The parish priest
of Zicavo says mass there every year on the ist of August, and
the shepherds and villagers assemble to dance sub tegmine fagi to the
sound of pastoral instruments.
After leaving San Pietro, we entered the virgin forest, which
has never been violated by the woodcutter's axe, and the recesses
of which are known only to the bandit or the wild animals, which
make it their lair. Not one young tree was to be seen : all were
veterans, with long grey locks of lichen and mantles of rusty moss
covering their knotty limbs. We wound in and out among the
huge trunks and interlacing roots, like a small procession of larvae.
In some places, whole companies of these forest veterans had
succumbed to old age, and their white skeletons littered the ground,
which was deeply indented by the shock of the falling trunks, though
the roots still gripped the boulders, like the talons of gigantic vultures.
Dead silence reigned in this vegetable mausoleum, and it was with
an instinctive breath of relief that we came out on the bare ground
beyond, though it was but to exchange the dreariness of the un-
tenanted woods for a desolation of stone and naked rock. Every
crest and boss of the soaring heights in front of us seemed a landslip.
On a denuded slope strewn with rounded boulders were a few huts,
scarcely distinguishable in colour from the stones among which they
were built.
" Yonder is Frauletto," said the old guide, pointing with his
finger.
i8o
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
I looked, but saw nothing save the empty sky and naked rocks
— a wild waste place of implacable solitude, dominated by the bare
summit of the Incudine. Below this, a few black specks slowly
moving among the deh-is indicated the presence of the flocks, and
at length I made out the cabins of the shepherds, the last inhabitants
of these summits.
Here, in the silence of the mountains, they support the torrid
sun of August and the sudden chills of September, fighting the
fevers which they frequently contract in the unhealthy plains below,
whither they are
,^,y^^^ '\ driven back by the
frosts at the be-
ginning of October.
I have seen the
mountain saeters
of Norway and the
" black-houses " of
the Hebrides, but
never a more miser-
able human dwell-
ing than the huts
of these Corsican
shepherds ; and
the romantic pic-
nature, was soon
'V\W- -=-
Shepherds' Huts.
ture I had formed of their free life with wild
chilled by contact with the stern reality.
Inside the huts, the accommodation consists of a smoky hearth,
a bed of beech leaves, and a few blocks of unhewn wood to serve as
seats. The walls are constructed of rough stones, between which
the wind whistles. The roof, which is of planks, is covered by pieces
of rock to prevent it being lifted off by the northerly gales. The few
household utensils, for cooking milk or making cheese, are hung from
a tree trunk in the centre of the stazzo (hut).
As in former days, the shepherds sleep on the ground before the
hearth, with a log for a pillow, and their pelones for coverlet. Their
PASTORAL CUSTOMS.
183
dark clothes are woven of lambs' wool by their wives. The food
of these patriarchal families consists of milk, polenta^ and rye or
barley bread, made in large quantities in advance, and dried in the
oven to such hardness that it has to be soaked in water before being
eaten.
The shepherds of the Coscione have retained all the beliefs and
customs of their ancestors. Hospitality is regarded as a duty, and
they are affable and serene in manner. The habitual contemplation
of vast landscapes and mountain
loneliness has rendered their ex-
pression grave and their look medi-
tative, as if they, in their own
way, had found the " inward eye,
which is the bliss of solitude."
Their minds are haunted by
innumerable superstitions. At
eventide, by the glowing embers,
the children listen with wide-open
eyes to strange stories of hobgob-
lins {folleti)y and shudder when
they hear the casual cry of a
passing utal achelo^ or bird of evil -
omen, or the wail of the wind
through the creviced walls.
The shepherds have great faith
in omens. The appearance of
weasels foretells rain, and a certain bellowing of the cattle is a sign
of snow. Much is also signified by the stains and texture of the
shells of the eggs laid by the fowls.
When disease breaks out among the animals, the shepherds hurry
to Zicavo to obtain the key of the oratory of Saint Roch, which
they throw in the midst of the flock, and the epidemic instantly
ceases. They also sprinkle the cattle with scrapings from the
church walls.
Monday is unlucky, and no sales are ever effected on that day.
A Shepherd.
1 84
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
The women believe in the evil eye, and also attach a malefic influence
to the praise of certain people. Children may thus be suddenly
struck by mortal illnesses ; and then they are censed with the smoke
of burning olive branches, or palms blessed on Palm Sunday. In
times of doubt, the shepherds cut the throat of a buck, a lamb,
or a kid, and examine the shoulder-blade of the victim, with which
they practise divination.
Near the forks of Asinao, a quasi-sacred mountain close to the
Coscione, terminating in three gigantic rock spires, the ancients
assembled one night in the time of the First Empire and immolated
a kid. The augur, after long examination of the shoulder-blade,
exclaimed, " A line of blood crosses the east side. Women will
weep and many fathers will bid a last farewell to their children."
Strangely enough the prophecy was soon realised.
All the shepherds are poets and musicians. At noon, when the
sun beats hot upon the mountains, they give the flocks their uierezzare
(midday meal), and, retiring to the shade, recite Tasso and Ariosto,
or improvise poems, which they sing to their lyres, or, in default of
these, to the accompaniment of pan-pipes or bag-pipes.
The following are two verses, very popular among the shepherds,
which bear not a little resemblance to the style of Ossian.
Fra Vorror di notte teira,
E tra il sibilo dei venti,
Mcsto al SU071 di antica cetra
lo qui accoppio i miei lamenti^
Ma tu dormt, ed io frattanio
Alzo invano all' aere il canto.
Se la notte fosse priva
Delle sue fulgide stelle,
Dio potrebbe, o cara diva,
Colle tue luci si belle
Adornarc in un momento
D'alire stelle il Jirmame?tto.^'
Through the horror of the mirk night
And the vvhisthng of the wind,
With the sound of my ancient lyre,
I accompany my laments ;
But thou sleepest, and I vainly
Spend my songs on the air.
' If the night were deprived
Of its gleaming stars,
God would be able, O beloved goddess,
With thy two beautiful eyes.
To adorn, in one moment,
The sky with new stars."
The shepherds are the protectors of the bandits, and provide them
with food. During my stay at Zicavo, the gendarmes of the neigh-
bourhood were constantly concentrating on the hermitage of San
The Ghastly Horseman.
THE GHASTLY HORSEMAN. 1 87
Pietro, but without effecting a single capture, although forty bandits
were known to be hiding in the solitudes of the Coscione.
After visiting Frauletto, we went to the shepherds' village at
Palaghiole, where we saw cheese in process of manufacture. I was
surprised at the cleanliness of these humble dwellings.
From Palaghiole we descended through some woods to the banks
of a torrent, where I stopped to gather some flowers while my
companions rode on. Making a short cut across some common land
to overtake the party, I came upon a most extraordinary and ghastly
spectacle. An old man dressed in an ample goat-skin cloak was
mounted on a horse, which was shivering all over and appeared
terrified. The old man's seat was rigid, his head was held high, his
eyes were closed, and his face was ghastly pale. It was a corpse.
A forked twig fixed to the saddle upheld his chin, and cords and
pieces of wood kept the body in position. Close behind this grisly
apparition came a small escort of shepherds, who were taking the
dead man to his native village for burial.
It appears that this is the only means of conveying a body across
this rough region, which is impracticable for wheeled vehicles.
From the Coscione to Zicavo, or Fium' Orbo, even a hand litter
can only be used for a portion of the way, and on the steep mountain
tracks a horse must perforce be employed. The poor quadrupeds
appear painfully aware of the nature of their burden, and, though they
hasten their pace, never trot or gallop. They go through such an
agony of fear, however, as to be quite exhausted and unfit for further
service after one of such journeys. The shepherds notice that the
horses always stop at the spots where the dead man himself was in
the habit of pausing to rest.
The sun was setting when I rejoined my party, and we hastened
on, up the steepest ascent we had yet climbed. There was no path,
and we had to pick our way over loose boulders and fallen tree-
trunks, through the deepening twilight of the forest. Darkness had
completely closed in when we reached the spot chosen by the guide
for our camping ground, which was on the extreme verge of the
forest-line, at the foot of the summit of the Incudine. Enormous
1 88 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
blocks of granite enclosed natural rooms, sheltered from the wind,
with the star-strewn sky for a decorated ceiling, and after lighting a
fire of brushwood and making a hasty meal, we lay in a circle with
our feet to the embers, and were soon asleep.
The guide woke us an hour before dawn, and leaving our mules
in charge of some boys, we quickly scaled the last height in time to
see the sun rise. An icy wind chilled us to the bone when we reached
the top ; and the warm colours of day were welcome in a twofold
sense. A vague glimmer in the east announced the uprising of the
sun, and the distant sea was growing pale, before flushing rosy-red.
Gradually, an indistinct line on the eastern horizon indicated the
coast of Italy. Southward, Sardinia came full in view, like a raised
map, and I could distinguish the Gennargentu and the peaks of
Limbara. Close at hand rose the forks of Asinao, and Sartene and
Bonifacio gleamed on the edge of the plain beyond. Behind us was
Ajaccio. Then came Mounts Rotondo and Renoso, the bulk of
which hid a large part of the island, but northward the eye roamed
free to where Cape Corse cleaved the sea like a wedge.
While we were admiring the view we were joined by some of the
shepherds from Palaghiole, accompanied by two other men, both of
whom were armed to the teeth.
One of them especially attracted my attention. He was a man of
small stature, but proud bearing, yet with a singularly devil-may-care
expression. He was curling his slight moustache, while a cold smile,
which just revealed his white teeth, seemed stereotyped on his face.
But his eyes were not still for an instant ; and as he stood alone on
the topmost peak, scanning the vast prospect, not a detail seemed to
escape his glance. He and the shepherds with him had come out to
shoot moufloHy a sport both as exciting and as tedious as deer-
stalking ; and quick, accurate sight is as requisite to detect the animals
as it is to aim at them.
The man, I learned subsequently, was the redoubted bandit
Giovanni, friend and comrade of Rocchini, the brigand chief executed
some years since at Sartene. The man who was with Giovanni was
also a bandit, but of less account.
THE STORY OF THE PACT OF BLOOD. I9I
Leaving the hunters to pursue their stalk, we returned to our
mules, and proceeded to the " moving fields " of Castel Rinuccio.
These fields, which cover a wide plateau, consist of a surface of
fine turf several inches thick, resting upon water. The soil rocks
at each step one takes upon it, and produces a feeling of dizziness
which is by no means pleasant. But flocks pasture on the rich grass
fearlessly, and even the hoofs of the mules do not sink in. By
putting one's ear to the ground, one can hear the gurgling of the water
underneath. The shepherds even cut holes in the turf, and net small
trout, which they grill on heated stones and eat with butter.
A few days after my return to Zicavo, I made an excursion with
my friends, the Abbatucci, to the river Taravo, which, after a
tumultuous course down the mountains, glides calmly and dreamily
through a wooded granite gorge, which is spanned by a bold arch.
I passed many quiet hours by this solitary torrent, which, like a
human life, after a stormy youth, finds itself moving contentedly in
its appointed groove.
The long Corsican summer was coming to an end ; morning and
evening mists crept through the valleys, and every torrent and
watercourse was filled with storm-rains. When the household fires
were lighted at early morning, the village was veiled by a blue haze,
in which the houses seemed to float like phantom dwellings. The
hearth, which has no chimney, is in the middle of the single room,
in order that the rising heat may dry the chestnuts placed on a sort
of gridiron laid across the rafters, and the smoke having no other exit,
filters slowly through the interstices in the roof and walls.
The month of November came in softly, novembre del oro^ as the
people called it, bringing an abundant harvest of mast and chestnut.
Of an evening the melancholy scumbapio^ precursor of northerly gales
and cold, howled about the roof-tree ; but the doors were snugly
closed, the charcoal fires glowed cheerily, and by the light of resinous
torches the folk gathered round the hearth to tell stories of bandits
and historic wars, when the Corsicans rose in arms and hid in their
forests, to preserve their independence.
It was at one of these gatherings that I heard the following story.
192
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
The bandits, who generally work in pairs, cement their partnership
by a common crime, which forms an indissoluble bond between them.
Two bandits were once wandering in the woods round Zicavo, when
one of them requested his comrade, with whom he had only recently
associated himself, to give proof of his fidelity by shooting the
occupant of a neigh-
bouring house. The
other did so and took
to flight, hotly pur-
sued by gendarmes,
Being hard pressed,
the man took refuge
in a house in the
village.
" I have just killed
an enemy," said he ;
. "the gendarmes are
on my track, and I
demand asylum."
The hour was late,
but supper was pre-
pared and the master
of the house gave up
his own bed to the
fugitive.
The next day had
worn to night, when
the bandit was roused
by his host, who said :
" You must make
haste to leave before daylight, in order that no one may see
you ! "
The bandit then rose and followed the master, but, before they
parted, at a spot some distance from the village, the fugitive's
entertainer said : " You asked for asylum, and I opened my- house
Going to the Well.
HOSPITALITY AND VENGEANCE. 1 93
to you : you were hungry and thirsty, and I gave you to eat and
drink : you were weary, and I gave you my bed : but . . . the man
whom you killed yesterday was my brother. Flee, then, from my
presence ; for now that you are no longer under my roof, I will
pursue you with my hatred."
The murderer began to stammer excuses, but the other inter-
rupted him with, " I give you an hour in which to escape. After
that, we shall be enemies. Be on thy guard, as I will be on mine ! "
Such is the duty of hospitality in Corsica, stronger even than the
law of vengeance.
13
The Ravine of Bocognano.
CHAPTER IV.
A Witch. — The Light of Busso. — Another Brigand Story. — Corte. — The Genoese. -
Ghisoni. — The Christe Eleiso?i. — The Passes of Inzecca. — Eternal Obhvion.
The Mill of Niolo.
IT was not without regret
that I left Zicavo, where
I had seen and heard so much
that was interesting, and
where the very rocks and
trees had become Hke friendly
faces.
But it is foolish to lose
one's heart, whether to men
or things ; for farewell must
be said sooner or later, and
it is tempting fate to add
even " till we meet again."
One evening accordingly
found me back at Ajaccio,
and the next morning I was
in the train with a ticket for
Bocognano on the line to
194
A WITCH OF THE HILLS. 1 95
Vizzavone. Had I not seen and admired the valley of the Taravo,
Zicavo, and the Coscione, the scenery might have more interested
me. As it was, T found it sad and depressing. On every side, I
beheld only scorched mountain slopes, black gorges, and withered
trees. In the direction of Vizzavone, the flanks of some of the hills
were still smoking with forest fires ; others were grey and naked,
and covered with grey ashes, which, at a distance, seemed like a
leprous skin. The tragic gloom of the sky enhanced the desolation,
and the blanched, distorted skeletons of the trees, scorched by fire
and drenched by autumn rains, seemed to be writhing in mute agony.
At Bocognano, where I left the train, I walked for the entire day
across arid summits, overlooking yawning gorges, beyond which
mountain rolled upon mountain, till the distant heights were lost to
view in a canopy of heavy clouds. Stray gleams of light broke
through at intervals and irradiated the corrosive, chemical colouring
of the rocks, or suddenly revealed the depths of a dark ravine.
For an instant, the summit of the Monte d'Oro suddenly appeared
across a gap in the hills — a dazzling vision of snow against a corner
of blue sky, above the black pine-clad valleys.
Then twilight gradually fell upon the land. Fires gleamed here
and there among the mountains, and the red glow of the burning
makis crept down the hills in serpentine lines like volcanic lava,
while columns of dense smoke spread outwards and upwards towards
the darkening sky.
I was belated on the foot hills of the Monte d'Oro. A few
distant lights indicated Bocognano ; but I had lost my way.
At this juncture I was passed by an old woman, whose head
was covered by a thick veil, though her fantastic profile was distinctly
outlined against the sullen sunset light. I hailed her, and she
stopped. Her hooked nose, hawk-like eyes, and emaciated hands,
crooked and knotty like the talons of a bird of prey, gave her the
appearance of one of Macbeth's witches wandering across the blasted
heath. Her voice was a shrill, quick cry ; and when she raised her
arm to point out the village in the depths below, her mezzaro shook
in the breeze like the wings of some bird of night.
196
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
" Follow me, follow me ! " said she, coughing and trembling from
sheer senility, as she walked ahead down the steep narrow path.
She had gone but a few paces when she came to a standstill, saying,
" Yonder is Busso ! Look for a moment, and you will see !
I turned my eyes in the direction indicated, but could only just
distinguish a few white houses in the shadows. Presently, however,
a vague, pale radiance hovered in the air above the village, slowly
increased in volume
and intensity, and
then, all at once,
disappeared. A
few moments later,
the light began
again, waxing gra-
dually brighter, and
then going out as
before.
The old crone
blinked at me fur-
t i V e 1 y from the
corner of her eye.
" What is that
light ? " I asked.
She sat down on
a stone by the way-
side, sighed, and
told me the story.
" Once upon a time, there lived at Busso a very pious lord, who
kept a monk as chaplain, whose chief duty was to say prayers when
the lord returned from the chase. The lord listened devoutly, stand-
ing before the altar with his gun in his hand, while his hounds
kept the door. Ah ! He was a mighty huntsman ! One evening,,
he was belated, chasing mouflons ; and when he reached the castle
the prayers had been said, and the monk was in bed. Furious with
rage, the lord rushed to the chaplain's room and striped his sword
Tiie Witch.
THE HAUNTED HOUSE OF BUSSO. I97
through the priest's body. From that time, the monk returns each
night to the village, wandering about with a lighted taper in his
hand, searching for the site of the chapel in order to say mass, as
he did in the time of the old lord."
All the time she was telling this legend, the light kept waxing
and waning, and on the following day I made inquiries which proved
that I was not the victim of a hallucination. Many other people
have had their curiosity aroused by this nocturnal phenomenon,
but none has ever been able to determine the exact spot whence
the light proceeds ; for it fades away as the village is approached,
and can only be seen from a distance.
The night was very thick, and I had some difficulty in keeping
pace with the old woman, who seemed to glide quite noiselessly down
the steep, stony way, and only betrayed her presence by coughs
and sighs. She disappeared with almost magic suddenness, and I
found myself at Bocognano, where the lights of the inn made a
friendly band of light across the dark street.
I rediscovered my old woman next day, and she proved to be
really a kind of sorceress from Corte, skilled in making decoctions
to ward off the fever of malaria or induce the less obnoxious fever
of love, and learned in exercising the evil eye. I made her sit
for her portrait, though, like other birds of night, she dreaded
the daylight, and blinked like an owl when I made her sit
in the sun.
Pentica, near Bocognano, is celebrated for the exploits of the
Bellacoscia band of brigands — true mountain kings, to whom a
prefect of Corsica once paid his respects, as did likewise a brilliant
man of letters and a well-known member of the French Chamber
of Deputies. These bandits, in spite of the heroic legend which
has grown round their name, were four times condemned to death
for murder or other crimes, and their only distinguishing characteristic
was that they managed to snap their fingers at the law for nearly
fifty years.
Pentica is now occupied by gendarmes, and the refuge of the
Bellacoscia is unknown ; at least, so it is said, though as every one in
198 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
the country befriends the bandits, it is not likely that any one would
profess to know where they are, or imperil their safety.
The following is the thrilling story told by a lieutenant, who
sought to effect their capture : —
"Xavier Suzzoni, of Nogario, was sentenced to several years'
penal servitude for manslaughter. Being desirous, on the completion
of his sentence, of returning to live in Corsica, he asked the mayor
of his commune to give him a certificate, stating that his return
need not cause fear to any one ; but the mayor, knowing the man's
bad disposition, refused. A few days later Suzzoni shot the
official dead. He then took to the makis, murdered two of his
relatives, and swore implacable hatred against Jean Battesti, mayor
of Nogario, who had declared his distrust of the ruffian. Suzzoni
was joined by the brothers Antoine and Jacques Bonetti, called
Bellacoscia, of Bocognano.
" Jacques Bellacoscia and Suzzoni arrived one night at Nogario,
and sent word to the mayor that two people wished to speak to
him. Battesti suspected a ruse ; but being a brave man, armed
himself with a dagger and two pistols, and proceeded to the meeting-
place. The bandits were followed by a huge dog, an animal which
has since become almost legendary. When Battesti, after a trivial
conversation, wished to depart, two rifles were levelled at his head,
and he was ordered to march in front of his enemies. He had no
resource but to obey, and all three proceeded towards Mount Venaco,
close to Pentica. On arriving near Corte, where Battesti had a
brother, a parish priest, the brigands told a woman to inform the
priest that the mayor was in their hands, and would only be released
for a ransom of i^i20. Such a sum could not be collected in a
moment, and the brigands and their prisoner waited forty-eight hours,
at the end of which time they had exhausted their provisions, and
were worn out by fatigue. Jacques Bellacoscia then ordered the
dog to go and fetch a goat from a flock which was grazing on top
of the mountain. The dog ran off, and soon returned with a young
kid, which was killed, skinned, and eaten raw, without bread. On the
evening of the second day, the woman returned with the ransom,
STALKING THE BRIGANDS. 1 99
and Battesti, being released, went straight to Corte and warned
the police.
" As commanding officer at Vivario, I was informed of the crime,
and immediately started in pursuit, with seven men. Supposing that
the brigands had crossed the pass of Vizzavone, in order to reach
Pentica, over the Monte d'Oro, I had this passage guarded. It was
the depth of winter, and there was much snow. In fact, we were
almost perishing from cold, when the famous dog arrived, acting
as scout, and, having scented us, warned his masters by furious
barking. As the brigands could not cross the mountains deep in
snow, except by the gap of Manganello, between the Monte d'Oro
and the Monte Rotondo, I decided to reach the spot before the
bandits and wait for them. But this idea was frustrated by the
enormous snowdrifts, and we risked our lives only to reach the gap
a few minutes after the brigands.
" On the 2nd of January, having received information of the
bandits' hiding-place, I started off at nightfall, with four men, carry-
ing a week's provisions, and arrived at midnight at the barracks of
Bocognano, where we waited in hiding till the following night.
Thence we were guided by a man of the village to the summits of
Sico and Tasso, near Pentica. There we camped in the snow till
January 7th, when, on emerging at daybreak from the cave in which
we had sought shelter, I heard the baying of a dog. At nine o'clock
we heard a rustling in the bushes. It was a wild boar which the
dog was chasing. We cautiously followed, and, two hours later,
saw two men sneaking through the forest, and, a moment later,
the smoke of a camp-fire rising above the trees. We hurried on,
and soon came upon three men sitting round a fire, with their guns
on their knees and a dog by their side. They were our four enemies.
We at once began to surround them, but the dog signalled our
presence by a sharp, dry bark. The brigands leaped to their feet,
one of them exclaiming, ' Sangue de la Madona ! ' saw my men, and
fired. We replied with a volley.
" Being too low down to see well, I jumped on the trunk of a
tree, and perceived one of the brigands making off to the mountain.
200
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
I levelled my rifle, but he hid behind a rock. Another bandit
followed. I aimed again, fired, and saw him fall. The first brigand
seized him by the hand, and, still under cover of a rock, tried to lift
him. I fired two bullets, hitting him on the cheek and the right arm.
He dropped his
comrade, who,
struck by a ball,
which had
entered the right
ear and gone out
by the left, was
stone dead, and
took to flight
with his brother
Jacques, at the
same time set-
ting the dog upon me.
Not having properly re-
loaded, I shouted to my
men, * Fire on the dog !
Fire on the dog!' One
of the gendarmes, seeing
my danger, rose up from
his ambush, and the dog
rushed upon him only to
receive the muzzle of the
rifle full in the chest and
be blown to pieces. The
man whom I had killed
proved to be the notorious
Suzzoni ; but the two
brothers, Bellacoscia, made good their escape to the mountain fast-
nesses, where it was useless to fellow them."
Such is the narrative of the origin of the famous Bellacoscia
brigands. When I left Bocognano the weather had cleared up, and
The Gaffori House.
THE GENOESE AT CORTE. 20I
I took the diligence to Corte, the road to which is an almost unbroken
descent. The driver of the diligence gave his horses their heads,
and the journey was one dizzy whirl downwards, along the edge
of precipices, round sharp corners, and neck-and-neck with the
rushing mountain torrents, till, out of breath and with reeling brains,
we pulled up at the foot of a short hill, and climbed to the village
of San Pietro, where a second descent, skirting the shoulders of a
mountain, brought us suddenly into Corte.
Corte is one of the quaintest towns in Corsica, with its gun-
powder-grey houses clustering round the steep, vitrified rock, on
which rises the ancient citadel. The place looks as if it had been
but recently besieged. Many of the houses are little more than
ruins, from the cracked stone walls of which the charred timber
frames project like broken sword-blades, while the unglazed, shutter-
less windows resemble yawning shot-wounds.
One of them, the Maison Gaffori, which is still occupied, is simply
riddled with the shots from Genoese blunderbusses. In 1746 General
Gaffori chased the Genoese from the city and invested them in the
citadel. Through the perfidy of a nurse, they had captured the
general's little son, and, displaying the child on the ramparts, they
threatened to decapitate him, should the citadel be assaulted. Un-
deterred by this, Gaffori continued the attack, and the garrison
eventually capitulated, without, however, carrying out their threat
of killing the child.
Four years later, in the absence of the general, the Genoese laid
siege to his house ; but his heroic wife threatened to blow up the
building rather than surrender, and managed to hold out until her
husband returned. Not long afterwards, however, General Gaffori
was assassinated by his own brother, corrupted ' by Genoese gold.
The widow led her son, the same child who had been exposed on the
ramparts of the citadel, in front of the dead body, and made him take
an oath to avenge his father's death. He was then only twelve years
old ; but he remembered, and when he was grown up fulfilled his oath.
Such was one of the bloody dramas enacted at Corte during the
occupation by the Genoese, who were so detested that, in 1729, the
202 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
girls of the town swore never to marry as long as the enemy defiled
the soil of the country ; in order, as they said, not to bear slaves
as children.
Even now, the very name of the Genoese is cursed ; and several
Corsicans repeated to me, with emphasis, the words of Dante, —
" Ah I Genovesi, uomini diversi,
Uogni costtmie e pien d'ogni magagna,
Perche non siete voi dal mondo spcrsi! "...
By a singular coincidence, this warrior-house of Gaffori, the scars
on which are religiously preserved by the general's descendants who
occupy it, was once the residence of the father and mother of Napoleon
the Great, and it was probably between these walls riddled with shot,
that Mme. Laetitia found herself about to become the mother of the
soldier son who was to fill the world with his name.
Corte is surrounded on all sides by lofty summits, bare mountain
crests, and scarped rock-needles, overhanging wild ravines, two of
which are threaded by savage torrents, the Tavignano and the
Restonica, whose pale green waters roll over blocks of polished
marble, white as snow.
Having received an invitation to visit my friend M. Bianconi at
Ghisoni, I left Corte one night by diligence for Vivario, the nearest
station to Ghisoni. We reached Vivario at half-past four in the
morning. The diligence stopped, set me down, and drove on, leaving
me standing alone at the foot of a flight of stone steps, leading to a
closed door, above which hung a dried branch rustling in the wind.
That branch, which was the sign of the inn, and the twinkling
stars, seemed the only animate objects in the chill loneliness of the
waning night.
I picked up a stone, and rapped with it on the door. A few
moments later, I heard heavy footsteps, the lock was turned, and the
door opened. I entered a miserable hovel, lighted by a candle, which
the innkeeperess held in her hand. Setting this down, she kindled
a fire of faggots on the hearth, sitting by which, I dozed uneasily
till dawn.
AT GHISONI. 205
When I awoke, a few men were sitting at the table, drinking black
coffee and cheap brandy, and the room was full of the acrid smoke
of bad Corsican tobacco. They were Sardinians and Italians from
Lucca, engaged as workmen on the railway. At daybreak flocks of
goats passed, on their way to pasturage ; and shortly afterwards, I was
told that a carriage had been engaged to convey me to Ghisoni.
As I left Vivario, I could not help noticing its primitive belfry^
w^hich is nothing but a plane tree, the bells being hung to transverse
beams laid across the branches, with the ropes hanging down to the
ground.
The road to Ghisoni sharply rises to the pass of Sorba, the head
of which is some 4,200 feet above sea-level. On either side are
dense pine forests, the trees growing to an immense height, the
stems straight as pillars, though the branches are torn and twisted
by the mountain winds, which rustle through the needles with a
sound like that of falling waters. The descent on the opposite side
of the pass is still through forest, but the pines soon give place to
chestnuts, and the air grows milder.
Ghisoni lies in a sort of funnel, formed by the Sorba and a range
of mountains, the serrated ridge of which recalls the splintered outline
of the CuchuUins in Skye. Unlike the other mountains of Corsica,
the nakedness of these Ghisoni hills is unrelieved by so much as a
blade of grass. Grim and severe, the precipices and pinnacles rise
abruptly from the valley, like the jagged outline of an iceberg.
Livid or purple, according to the slant at which they reflect the
light, the rocks have a primeval aspect, which is almost terrifying.
Vertical fissures divide peak from peak, and the wildest peak of them
all bears the strange title, Christe Eleison, " Christ, have mercy ! "
In revolutionary times a persecuted priest is said to have sought
refuge in a cave at the foot of the highest crag, where he was
sustained by the shepherds, who came in fear and trembling to hear
the prohibited mass, which he used to celebrate with a rock for altar,
and mountain and sky for church.
An adjacent peak bears the complementary title of Kyrie Eleisoiiy.
" Lord, have mercy ! "
204
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
When out walking with M. Bianconi, on the evening of my arrival
at Ghisoni, the quiet of the country road was suddenly broken by a
formidable rumbling of heavy traffic, accompanied by the tinkling
of myriad mule bells, and the outlandish oaths of Corsican carters.
Presently, by
the yellow glare
of resinous
torches, which
made strange
play of light
and shade in
the forest aisles,
appeared a
string of carts,
each with a
team of twelve
or fifteen mules,
bringing timber
from the forest
of Marmano, on
their way to the
passes of Inzec-
2 _, ca, whence the
wood is taken
to Ghisonacce, there to be
embarked on Italian vessels.
Early on the morrow we
ourselves visited these same
defiles of Inzecca, which are
a series of narrow gorges
where the road follows a preci-
pice overhanging a torrent.
Leaving Ghisoni, we crossed a picturesque Genoese bridge,
spanning a clear stream, which reflected the stern escarpment of the
Christe Elezson, and soon reached the gorge of the Fium'Orbo, which
The "Christe Eleison.
Tile Pass of Inzecca.
THE GORGE OF FIUM ORBO. 207
has hewn out a course for itself through the solid rock, the surface of
which is planed and polished by the action of the water. The gorge
grew narrower and wilder as we advanced, and the sheer cliffs on
either hand were fringed with pine trees, some seedlings of which had
effected a lodgment between the rocks in the very bed of the torrent.
Further on, we opened up a valley, where a picturesque village
gleamed on the forest-clad heights ; and after a sudden and unexpected
glimpse of the distant sea, we entered the narrowest of the passes
of Inzecca.
The road was a mere ledge along the side of an unscaleable
precipice, overlooking a giddy abyss, at the bottom of which the
Fium'Orbo wrestled for its course with an opposing army of fallen
rocks. The path was so narrow and the height so terrifying that, at
several places, our horses refused to move.
While we were in the defile the timber waggons arrived, and we
watched them one after the other turn the elbow of the pass, where
the angle is so sharp that the planks in turning actually overhang
the abyss.
The story is told of a woman, who fell asleep reclining upon the
timber, and being awakened by the sudden movement of the wood
and the shouts of the carters as the corner was turned, found herself,
as it were, suspended in mid-air, and died of fright on the spot.
To return to Ghisoni, the houses of the hamlet are grouped
together in one spot at the bottom of the valley, unlike most
other Corsican villages, which are generally scattered on the
heights.
Another curious difference between Ghisoni and other places is
in its burial customs. At Ghisoni the more well-to-do people
bury their dead oh their property, leaving a corner of land unculti-
vated for this purpose. The graves are marked by a wooden
cross, but ever afterwards the place of sepulture is shunned by the
survivors, who even take the greatest care to avoid mentioning the
name of the deceased, as if they vowed the dead to eternal
oblivion.
When any one is seriously ill, or believed to be in danger of
208 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
death, the priest has the bell rung to summon the people to the
chapel ; and when all are assembled, and provided with lighted
candles, the viaticum is conveyed in procession to the house of
the sick, the people chanting funeral hymns as they go.
Whilst the priest is administering the last sacraments, they
stand or kneel at the door, and recite litanies and the prayers for
the dying. Then the priest, standing on the threshold, asks pardon
on behalf of the dying for any offences he or she may have
committed against those assembled, and at the same time forgives
them for their trespasses against the sick person. The people bow
the knee, and afterwards return to the church, singing the 7> Deuin.
This ceremony, imposing though it be, generally produces a
disastrous effect on the sick, who, after so much solemnity in
speeding their passage, naturally give themselves up for lost. Nor
are they encouraged to live by seeing the members of their own
family making ready for the funeral, ordering the coffin, and preparing
the new grave-clothes. It is rarely, indeed, that the unfortunate sick
person, worn out by physical weakness, can rally against the mental
depression caused by such an extravagance of emotion.
When the deceased, as generally happens, is a member of the
confraternity of penitents, his grave-clothes are all white, and he
is followed to the grave by all the members of the confraternity
likewise dressed in white, with their heads enveloped in a cowl.
It is impossible to picture a more sepulchral spectacle than a
funeral procession of these masked penitents, as they pass like white
phantoms, chanting a lugubrious Miserere, alike for their own sins
and for those of the dead.
Evisa,
CHAPTER V.
A Wild Gorge. — The Bandit and his Friend. — Niolo. — A Village of Giants. — A
Blood-feud.— Woman in Corsica. — Along the West Coast. — Evisa. — The
Spelunca. — The Forest of Aitone. — A Greek Village.— The Pope and the
Brigand.
MY object in visiting Corsica was to study the remoter regions,
where the people and the landscape have the charm of
originality. Thus, my notice of the coast towns in these pages
is necessarily brief and inadequate.
Bastia, for instance, whither I proceeded after leaving Ghisoni,
is in reality no longer a Corsican town. Its inhabitants are polished
and modern, lacking even the sturdy independence of manner which
one meets at Ajaccio. The district round the town is charmingly
pretty, but quite conventional. Calvi, civitas semper fidelis, is more
picturesque, situated as it is on a rocky promontory fairly bristling
with thorny cactus.
But after all, neither of these towns can be called Corsican, and
one morning found me again in a carriage at Corte, on my way to
Niolo, and the lost valleys beyond the grim defile, called the Escala
de Santa Regina.
209
14
2IO THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
This gorge is even wilder, if less dangerous, than the Pass of
Inzecca.
The cliffs rise to inconceivable heights, cleft into gorges and
crevices, whose sides are sheer precipices. The hard, primitive rock,
granite, dolomite, or porphyry, is dark or flame-coloured, and glitters
like mica in the sun. The trees clinging to the sides seem to grasp
the lips of the ledges, like the hands of a terrified mountaineer saving
himself from falling. Massive boulders stand here and there like
sentries, some proudly erect, others leaning over, as if fascinated
by the deeps below. At the bottom of the gorge, along a bed whose
whiteness contrasts strangely with the wild colour of the rocky walls,.
runs the Golo. The guardian stream of such a scene ought, one
would think, to be a foaming, roaring torrent, or else, because at this
time of year the springs were dry, a thin rivulet of dripping water.
The stream was neither, but just a placid, almost currentless band
of clear green water, sleeping on a stainless bed.
But ware such deceptive calmness ! ^ On ,certain days, or rather
at certain hours, when the sky is dark and the peaks are swathed
in mist, all the fissures of the mountains transform themselves into
cataracts, and the rocks themselves crumble like melting snows.
The stream becomes a monster, and its swollen, turgid waters hurtle
down the glen with nameless clamour.
On New Year's day, 1888, eleven persons were seated at table
in one of the houses of the tiny hamlet of Santa Regina, which had
been built under the superintendence of the Board of Roads and
Bridges. It was six o'clock in the evening. Rain had been falling
for four-and-twenty hours, and the Golo was in spate. Suddenly
a cyclone broke over the mountains. A huge landslide fell upon the
house, and hurled it into the midst of the raging torrent, amid rolling
boulders and waves of mud.
When the tempest subsided, a search was made for the victims.
vSix bodies were found, but the remaining five had disappeared.
I questioned an old woman, who was baking bread near the ruins,
of the house.
Tears came into her eyes.
A BANDIT S DEATH. 2 11
" I was down there, on the other side of the road," said she, " and
I had not time to see. Everything was carried off in a whirlwind,
with a terrible roar. Ah ! It was a judgment ! They were bad
people and had bad books. God struck them, and their bodies will
never be found."
The carriage road is of quite recent construction, and before
it was built, the only means of reaching Niolo was by a goat-track,
which followed the line of the cliffs. At one place, the path consists
of eighty-four little zigzags, forming a sort of staircase to the
summits above, whence is derived the name Escala de Santa
Regina.
Like every other wild place in Corsica, the gorge has a brigand
story. It was here that the bandits Massoni and Arrighi were killed
by gendarmes. At daybreak the gendarmes surrounded a ravine
in which the brigands were concealed. A falling stone revealed
their presence, and the bandits fired a pistol, but without effect. The
gendarmes replied, and Massoni fell, mortally wounded. Feeling
that his end was near, he called the gendarme who had wounded him.
" Listen," said the brigand. " I pardon you my death ; you only
did your duty. Help me to do mine . . . place me in the sunlight,
lay a stone under my head, say the prayers for the dying . . . "
And he forthwith expired.
His companion, Arrighi, managed to hold out for three more
days, but in attempting to make his escape at midnight from the
cave in which he had taken refuge, was struck by two bullets,
though not before he had killed a brigadier and seriously wounded
a gendarme.
The Marshal Pasqualaggi followed the wounded brigand, and
summoned him to surrender.
The two men were acquainted, and even distantly connected.
The brigand, hiding behind the rocks in the darkness, called out
to the officer, " I don't want to surrender, yet I know I'm a lost
man. You were once my friend, and since I must be killed, I
would rather it were by your hand."
" As you like ! " said the officer, touched by this appeal.
212 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
" On one condition."
" Well ! "
" I have in my girdle one hundred and thirty-seven francs. You
must take them. Go to the priest and ask him to say twenty
masses for my soul ; pay him, and give the rest of the money to
my family. You promise ? "
" 1 promise ! "
" Thanks ! Now, kill me ! "
" Yes ! But I don't see you ! "
" Wait, then. The moon will rise in an hour. When it does I
will show myself"
Pasqualaggi, fearing a ruse, kept his eyes fixed on the bandit's
hiding-place, but, worn out by the day's fatigue and the strain
of keeping his attention fixed on one spot, gradually fell into a
doze.
When the moon rose, the light disclosed Pasqualaggi standing
on guard, with his carbine raised to his shoulder, but motionless
as a statue.
A man lifted himself wearily from the rocks, and presently a
voice asked, —
" Well, Pasqualaggi, aren't you ready ? "
" Here I am ! " exclaimed the officer, starting.
"Then fire!"
The bullet sped on its mission, and the brigand fell dead.
The Escala de Santa Regina takes a long time to traverse ; but
it grows less wild as one proceeds, the mountains decreasing in
height and the precipices becoming less steep.
Night fell as we emerged on a difficult road, and, under the
starry sky, soon saw stretching before us a wide strath embraced
by undulating hills. It was the highland valley of Niolo, which
lies like a saucer in the heart of the mountains. We lay that night
at the village of Calacuccia, and early next day started on mule-
back to visit Calasima, the highest village in Corsica.
The autumn sunlight was mellowed by a gauze-like mist, through
which the mountain cascades shone like molten metal.
A VILLAGE OF GIANTS.
2 I
At Albertacce we mounted a steep track and reached the chaos
of fallen rocks through which the path to Calasima threaded a
maze-like way. The village itself clung, as it were, to the slope of
a mountain, dominated by the lofty crests of Mount Cinto.
A picturesque mill stood by the side of a streamlet. It had
been constructed at small cost, being little more than a heap of
unmortared stones, a trough
made of a hollowed tree
trunk, and a wheel which
turned as it listed. But
the aridity of the walls
was hidden by trailing ivy
and festoons of clematis.
Our arrival was an
event. The whole village
turned out in a body to
welcome us. No one ever
visits this forgotten ham-
let, lost in the midst of
almost inaccessible sum-
mits ; and the people
seemed unable sufficiently
to show their delight at
seeing us. The noise was
deafening, and my two
companions and I had as much hand-shaking to perform as an
American president.
The first transports over, and the women having returned to
their distaffs and spindles, we walked down the street escorted by
all the children and dogs in the place.
Men sitting by the doorways rose as we passed, and politely
raised their caps. Their stature was surprising and their aspect
full of energy ; and all had fair hair and blue eyes.
Calasima was a village of giants, but of what race ?
Much has been written and said concerning the origin of the
Woman spinning at Calasima.
2 14 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
Corsicans, but no satisfactory decision has ever been reached. It
has been alleged that they are of. Italian origin. There is certainly
a resemblance of language, but an examination of the character of
Corsican physiognomy, and, above all, of manners and customs, soon
disposes of the idea. ^
Except in language, there is little in common between Corsica
and Italy, and there is, moreover, a traditional antipathy between
the two races.
Ever since the Genoese occupation Italy has been the hereditary
enemy of the Corsicans.
The epithet Lucchese (man of Lucca), applied to all Italians,
whether from Rome, Florence, Lucca, or any other part of the
peninsula, is an affront so serious that a true Corsican can never
pardon it.
If a Corsican employs on his estate six labourers, of whom two
are Italians, he will say, "I employ four men and two Lucchese."
He will never say, " I employ six men, or six persons."
A girl who has had a misfortune, is comforted with the proverb :
'^ Alia fin di taitti guai
Un Lucchese it manca mat"
This saying, which applies also to ugly girls who cannot get a
Corsican husband, may be rendered by, " Whatever you may lack,
you'll never be at a loss for a Lucca-man ! "
In certain mountainous regions, like the Niolo, which were cut
off from all communication with the outer world, the inhabitants
are of a particular type, which is said to present every analogy to
that of the ancifent Goths.
When I saw at Calasima men over seven feet in height, obliged
to stoop in order to enter their houses, I was simply stupefied.
But they were fine objects to look at, as they walked down the street
with proudly faised heads, wearing a heavy goat-skin cloak which
I could hardly lift. I expected them to lift me up in their hands
and examine me like a new Gulliver.
We entered a house where several men were playing cards. They
MEN OF MARK.
215
rose to their feet, and
nearly every man's head
touched the ceiling.
The tallest man in Cala-
sima was absent, but I
saw him next day at
Calacuccia ; he measured
seven feet four and a
half inches. One of the
card - players, however,
reached the respectable
height of seven feet two
inches. He, I learned,
in consequence of a ven-
detta, much to his credit
as a Corsican, had been
sentenced, and took to
the forest to escape the
law, but, as a matter of
fact, he spends most of
his time at home.
Ten gendarmes came
one day to arrest him,
but, as they rapped at
the door, he jumped out
of the window, rushed
in the midst of them,
knocked several of them
over, and, before they
recovered from their
surprise, escaped to the
mountain. Now he is
left in peace, being
much feared, as he com-
bines Herculean strength with marvellous agility.
A Giant of Calasima.
The vendetta was
2l6 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
wiped out by the usual ceremony of making peace between the
families at feud and consecrating friendship at the church of Calasima.
Wandering in the vicinity of the village, we were shown the
burial-place of Massoni and two men of his band, on the slope of
a mountain far from the cemetery.
Such a place was meet for the last resting-place of a brigand.
The bandit sleeps alone near the bare peaks, towards the lower-
ing clouds, laid to rest in rough soil overgrown with brambles on
the bank of a wild torrent, whose waters dash over blood-coloured
porphyry rocks with a savage murmur, full of menace and eternal
imprecation.
When we left Calasima, the name of which means in Corsican,
'* Near the summit," every one turned out to bid us farewell, and even
when we reached the bottom of the hill, we could still hear voices
far up the height calling " Good-bye."
We reached Calacuccia at twilight.
Several natives of the district came to spend the evening at the
inn ; and listening to their conversation, I heard more stories of
brigandage and vendetta.
The chief personage in the valley of the Niolo appeared to be
a brigand named Capa, who enjoyed such general esteem that even
the gendarmes did not interfere with him, as his capture would
certainly entail bloody reprisals, which it was the interest of the
authorities to avoid.
Brave and sober, Capa was very different from the majority of
the men of his trade. When pressed by hunger, he would enter the
first house he came to, and ask for a little bread and cheese and
a glass of water ; for he never drank wine. He had no companion,
and, like all brigands of mark, lived alone.
Another bandit once sought to enter into partnership with
him.
" Do you fear hunger and thirst ? " asked Capa. " Do you drink
wine ? "
" Certainly I do," said the other, proffering his gourd.
Capa waved the beverage away.
A CORSICAN BLOOD-FEUD. 217
" Do you smoke ? " he inquired.
" Yes, here's tobacco, and a flint and steel and tinder, at your
service."
" Listen," said Capa, shaking his head. " I can't have a com-
panion ; for he who is with me must endure hunger and thirst, and
avoid wine and tobacco. They are dangerous luxuries to a bandit.
Our manner of living does not allow us to become the slaves of any
habit. I sleep on the bare ground with a stone for pillow. I brave
the hurricane and the snow, the freezing wind and the burning sun.
I wander for days like a being accursed, through mournful solitudes,
in peril of ambuscades, flying from my pursuers and stalking my
enemies."
In the defile of Santa Regina, there is a plain cross by an abyss
on the side of the road, marking the spot where Capa watched for
weeks, with the patience of a Red Indian, for two of his enemies, till
he shot them dead from an ambush in the rocks.
The most celebrated feud of the Niolo was that which formerly
subsisted between the families of Leca and Tartarola. The dispute
had already resulted in some twenty murders on one side and the
other, when the following incident occurred : —
One evening, Leca was returning home with two relatives from
an ambuscade, where they had been watching for some of their
enemies. In order to reach their village, they had to pass through
the hamlet inhabited by the Tartarola.
When but a short distance from the houses, Leca suddenly feared
a trap and informed his companions. They did not share his fears,
and continued to go forward ; but Leca, feeling certain of the fate
awaiting him, took a desperate resolution. Going boldly into the
hamlet, he knocked at the door of Tartarola, the leader of his
enemies ; and even as the door opened, he heard the rattle of
musketry in the distance.
" Who's there ? " cried Tartarola.
" Leca, your enemy, who comes to ask hospitality for the night."
So saying, Leca passed his dagger, pistol, and gun through the
door, to show his confidence in the loyalty of his adversary.
2l8 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
" Come in ! " said Tartarola.
The hereditary enemy was then greeted as a guest. He refused
to accept any food, and took a seat by the fire, where he and
Tartarola watched through the night, chatting amicably on every
subject except the one of their mutual enmity.
In the morning Tartarola, after warning his people to abstain
from hostilities, accompanied Leca to the outskirts of the hamlet,
and, as he pressed his hand in token of farewell, said, "Now we are
again enemies as before ; and when we meet again, guns or daggers
must be our greeting."
Leca then returned home, to find that his fears had been too
well founded, and that the shots which he had heard as he knocked
at the door of Tartarola's house had been the death-warrants of his
two companions.
Niolo was formerly notorious for its vendette, but nowadays
such feuds are rare, though the people are still ready enough with
their rifles.
The annual affair held at Casamaccioli on the 8th of September
is always a scene of great disorder, and a strong force of gendarmerie
has to be sent to maintain order and prevent the frequent battles
between the inhabitants. This year there was an attempt to murder,
but when the culprit was about to be arrested, thirty muskets were
levelled at the officers of the law. The mayor then intervened,
and, as the majesty of the law had to be vindicated, at least in
appearance, ordered the arrest to be maintained, but at the same
time promised to set the prisoner at liberty as soon as possible.
The people of the Niolo are almost entirely pastoral, and the
shepherds, like those of the Coscione, go down from the mountains
to winter in the plains, but do not take their wives and children,
who pass the snow season in the villages weaving cloth and linen,
and making clothes for the family.
The Corsican woman occupies a position of real inferiority. Her
life may be summed up in three words— work, submission, and
sacrifice. Her youth is brief, and • her age premature; and she
knows nothing of the intermediate stage, which in women of other
INFERIORITY OF WOMEN.
219
countries is usually the period ' of greatest activity and usefulness
and maybe of most genuine happiness.
Nevertheless she does not appear to rebel against these con-
ditions. From her childhood she is inured to toil, which only ceases
with death. In Corsica the woman does not even sit at table, her
CorsJcan Woman and Girl.
,11, • '- ' '
part being simply to prepare the meal and wait on others. In
some households even two qualities of bread are baked, the better
kind for the man and the inferior quality for .the remainder of the
family.
In the division of inheritances, the daughters invariably admit
the right of the sons to < the larger share ; an.d public .opinion would
2 20 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
be against the woman who claimed more, even if the father had
devised his property to his children in equal parts.
But it must be admitted that, if the son gains more advantage,
he never shrinks from accepting the duties and burdens thereby
entailed upon him. He takes the place of the father, has his sisters
educated, and gives them a dowry. He often, indeed, remains single
in order better to be able to provide for the other members of the
family.
But passive and submissive as the Corsican women are at
ordinary times, they become perfect furies when there is a question
of death or revenge.
As in other countries, moreover, love 6f women is the primary
cause of many a blood-feud. For instance, when a girl has been
compromised by any man's attentions she names the man to her
parents, who at once order him to marry her. Should he refuse,
or even get out of the way, war is declared, and the families of the
young man and young woman enter upon a vendetta. The man may
often be innocent of what is laid to his charge ; but his oaths and
protestations count for nothing, and he must sacrifice himself in order
to divert still graver complications. Girls thus have it in their
power to cause terrible mischief, and many a family history can
offer examples of the awful consequences which have been entailed
by their jealousy and unfounded allegations.
After a few days spent in exploring the valley of the Niolo,
I left Calacuccia, and, passing a second time through the Escala
de Santa Regina, returned by way of Corte, Vizzavone, and
Bocognano to Ajaccio. Some days later, I started on a journey
along the west coast of the island, accompanied by the faithful Ant6.
The road from Ajaccio to Vico was somewhat monotonous at
the outset, and in grey weather would have been even depressing.
It is true that at first one had constant views of the shining cliffs
of Monte Rosso, and that there was the perpetual freshness of
sunlit verdure ; but beyond Appietto, the road entered a gloomy
district of monotonous hills, without trees and without rocks, lacking
even grass and flowers. Here and there the sparse inakis lay in
ALONG THE WEST COAST. 22 1
stretches of desolate brake along the shore of the Gulf of Lava, but
for the most part the land was naked ; long streaks of grey
cinders lay on the mountain slopes, and the black soil looked
carbonised. The forest had been burned away, leaving a veritable
tierra del fuego. The little birds which formerly enlivened the
verdant shades had departed, save a few trembling creatures which
sought shelter in the few trees spared by the conflagration, where
they were watched by the hawks and vultures, circling slowly above
the desolate heights.
As if to increase the sombre aspect of the landscape, the sun
became obscured by passing clouds, the sea grew the colour of lead,
and the sadness of shadow fell athwart the land.
The road continually ascended, till at length we reached the
ridge of San Bastiano, which seemed the dividing line of two
different countries. Behind lay nakedness and gloom : in front lay
light and verdure. The sky was clear, and the gulfs of Liscia and
Sagone reflected the blue. The mountains were swathed with
greenery, from which villages peeped out like rabbits in a warren,
and the horizon was bounded by a rose-coloured promontory washed
by blue waves, on the summit of which the Greek village of Cargesi
glittered in the sun.
Immediately below lay the township of Calcatoggio, built on
the flank of a mountain, which sloped down to a beach of pink
sand, fringed by the silver of the crumbling wavelets.
I halted at a white inn by the wayside, and as I took my lunch
feasted my eyes at the same time on a banquet of form and colour.
The infinite space of the gulf stretched beneath the window, not
repellent like northern seas, but warm and inviting under the
mellow rays of the southern sun. The breeze that blew in from
the west was sharp with sea-savours, yet balmy with the scent
of aromatic grasses and the perfume of flowers. The colour-scheme
was a harmony of pinks, lilacs, and pale aerial blues, shimmering in
the distance with the sheen of satin or shot silk, and flashing with
diamond-facets of iridescent light. Yet, even here there was a
shadow.
222 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
" What's the matter with your arm, that you wear it in a sling ? "
I asked of my hostess, as she waited upon me at table.
" Oh, nothing ! Merely a sort of swelling which comes on at
intervals and goes away again."
" But there must be a reason for it ! "
" It is a bruise," said she, blushing and looking discomposed.
" You are hiding something from me."
She then admitted that she had been shot in the arm, and that
the ball had never been extracted. She congratulated herself on
her escape ; for the bullet had been intended to kill.
Thus everywhere in Corsica, one is confronted by the musket
and the dagger, and the vendetta sits like a skeleton at every feast.
From Calcatoggio we skirted the pleasing shore and crossed the
estuary of the Liamone, a sort of vast marshy pond, very malarious,
but. affording good pasture on its shores.
Sagone, the next place of importance, is now a miserable hamlet,
but was once a large town, and the see of g, bishop in the sixth
century.
The road then left the shore and wound up a valley through
the woods, below high cliffs, on the summit ofw^hich the westering
sun-rays lighted the houses of the village of Balogna.
Night had fallen when we reached the ridge of Saint Anthony,
and saw the lights of Vico glittering in the dark embrace of a
circle of severe-looking mountain.s, the most striking of which is a
huge -rock, with an outline resembling a human figure, which is
called la Sposata (the betrothed).
From Vico onward the journey was a panorama of beauty, the
softness and verdui-e of which was dignified by the virile grandeur
of the bare slopes of the Inscinosa and the granite crags of Monte
San Angelo.
Through forests of chestnut, and thickets of ilex, passing quaint
villages hidden in remote valleys, we climbed ever upward towards
the pass of Levi, till we again reached the stony solitudes of the
highlands, where the only human being was some old, melancholy-
looking shepherd, guarding his goats, with his musket across his knees.
EVISA AND THE SPELUNCA.
22
The summit of the ridge demanded a halt to contemplate the
wonderful view of green forest and red rock which lay between us
and the now distant sea. Then once more we hurried down through
woods of oak
and chestnut,
catching strange
glimpses of col-
our and light
through the
forest aisles, as
we passed on
our way down
to Evisa.
Evisa is one
of the most pic-
turesque vil-
lages in Corsica,
nestling in a
chaos of red
rocks. The
Spelunca at
Evisa is a
sombre canon ;
the descent into
which, by the
most breakneck
path conceiv-
able, occupies a
good two hours.
Evisa is about
2,660 feet above
sea-level, while the bottom of the Spelunca is not more than 1,000 feet,
if so much, above the sea. The depth of the ravine must therefore
be over 1,600 feet. The precipices converge near the bottom, where
a little bridge, built by the Genoese, spans a torrent, the bed of which
Primitive Mill.
2 24 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
is encumbered with blocks of granite fallen from the heights above.
In winter, falls of rock are of frequent occurrence, and both sides of
the ravine are seamed with the tracks left by the boulders, which
destroy trees, pulverise stones, and sweep away everything in their
path. Clinging to the slope of one of the highest cliffs is the village
of Ota, overhung by a mass of rock which seems threatening to
fall every instant.
But the good people of the place know that that particular rock
can never fall, for is it not securely held by a net of goat-hair thread,
the ends of which are held by saintly monks who dwell on top of
the mountain expressly to retain them in place? Every night,
while the village sleeps, women climb the peaks to take food to the
good monks who watch over the safety of Ota, and give them oil
with which to lubricate the threads in order to make them last longer.
In 1876, a young girl of Ota, known as the beautiful Fior di
Spina, who was about to become a mother by the village school-
master, shot her lover dead at the church door, as he was entering
to solemnise his marriage with another girl. Fior di Spina was
acquitted by the jury, and one of her companions composed a vocero
of triumph which is still famous.
At the bottom of the Spelunca, I met a young man belonging to
Evisa, who offered to be my companion and guide to the forests of
Aftone and Valdoniello. I willingly agreed, and on the morrow
we drove to Aitone, which was the finest forest in Corsica, before
greed of gain felled much of the timber.
The trees are chiefly pines, and the woodland way was very silent.
Now and then the breeze rustled mournfully in the swaying crests,
or a ring-dove or wood-pigeon fluttered away in affright, but no birds
sang at this late season of the year. The forest track is steep, and
it took us over two good hours to reach the ridge of Vergio ; though,
truth to tell, we did not hurry, often leaving the path to look at a
fall or a picturesque vista along the stream, and passing some time
by a primitive mill, which stood among the rocks in the heart of
the forest, in an open glade bathed in sunlight and girdled by the
shadow of the woods.
In the Forest of Aitone.
15
THE CALANCHES. 22 7
As we went higher, the forest changed in character. Rushing
torrents crossed the pathway, the air freshened, and the pines gave
way to beeches, firs, larches, and stunted birch trees. Autumn had
laid its finger-mark on the foliage, and the sun shone warmly
through red and gold leaves.
On the summit of the ridge of Vergio, a wooden cross marked
where a man had died of cold only a few months before.
After a frugal lunch near a roadside spring, we penetrated a
short distance into the adjacent forest of Valdoniello, and then
returned to Evisa.
From there I proceeded to the far-famed rocks, known as the
Calanches. The road, after crossing the Spelunca and passing the
threatened village of Ota, enters a smiling country, well-wooded and
well-watered, on the shores of the Gulf of Porto.
Beyond this are the Calanches.
For a mile and a half, the road is bordered on both sides by the
wildest and most fantastic rocks imaginable. They are of an extra-
ordinary colour, and gleam in the sun like burnished copper. I
visited the place by moonlight, and never had I seen a stranger
landscape. Torn, convulsed, weather-worn, precipitous, it was a
nightmare of nature ; while far off, at the foot of the unscaleable
cliffs, stretched a calm expanse of silvered sea, strangely contrasting
with the black stone monstrosities, which seemed like giants smitten
with epilepsy. Yet, the sudden transition from the woods and
waterfalls of the Porto road, to this wild discord of rock and sea, was
eminently characteristic of Corsica, where tragic landscapes alternate
with smiling scenes of streams and flowers, just as banditti and
vendette interrupt the peaceful domesticities of life and love.
Thus, after leaving the Calanches, I again entered a fresh phase,
both of scenery and human character. One day I shivered at the
giddy abysses of Evisa, the next I wandered by moonlight amid
the strange rocks of the Calanches, and, on the third day, I walked
in a Grecian land, among orange and citron trees, on a headland
overgrown with aromatic plants, in the midst of a people entirely
differing from the Corsicans, both in their customs and in their
228 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
type, which recalled the marble perfection achieved by classic
sculptors.
I was in the village of Cargesi, inhabited by the descendants of
a Greek colony, which emigrated from Greece in the days of Turkish
oppression, and, after wandering throughout the Mediterranean,
received a grant of land in Corsica from the Ligurian Senate at
Genoa. On the good news reaching Greece, two other vessels of
refugees set sail for the new country. One of these was surprised
by a Turkish fleet, and the emigrants were massacred, but the other
ship safely reached Genoa.
After making an agreement with the Republic, the emigrants
landed in Corsica, on March 14th, 1676, and settled at the spot
chosen by the pioneers, as most resembling Greece in landscape and
climate — a spreading promontory shaped like a peacock's tail, which
received the name of Paomia.
The prosperity of the new colony was short-lived, however, for,
after the departure of the Genoese, the Corsicans attacked the
settlers, pillaged their farms, stole their flocks, and compelled them
to take refuge at Ajaccio, where a chapel, called the Madona del
Carmine, and afterwards known as the Greek chapel, was set aside
for their special use.
Forty-three years later, the French established the refugees at
Cargesi, where M. de Marboeuf, Governor of Corsica, built himself
a castle. But in 1793 this was burned to the ground, and the Greeks
were once more driven out of the settlement. Protected by several
Corsican families, however, they gradually returned, and now dwell
in peace. There have been frequent intermarriages between Greeks
and Corsicans, but quite one-half of the population is still of pure
Hellenic descent. Modern Greek is spoken by most families, and
the religious services are conducted according to the ancient Greek
rite.
The Corsicans settled at Cargesi, called paysani by the Greeks,
mostly adopt the Greek usage ; but when they preponderate in the
congregation, the village pope preaches, by courtesy, in Italian. The
cemetery is common to the two rites.
\y
THE POPE AND THE BRIGAND. 231
The people of Cargesi are polite, quiet, and very industrious.
They export corn and lemons, and are apparently prosperous.
Nevertheless, besides the taxes paid to the State, the inhabitants
have to meet other secret imposts. Often, at night, there comes a
knock at the door, and a man presents a letter written in pencil by
a bandit, together with a list of various objects and provisions
required, signed by the brigand.
This species of blackmail is levied not only at Cargesi, but in.
nearly all the villages of Corsica.
On the evening after my arrival, I received a visit from the pope^
a young man of pleasing manners, who had studied for the priesthood
at Rome. By way of helping to pass the evening pleasantly, he
told me yet one more brigand story, as we walked together along,
the shore.
Some two years previously, he was spending the evening with
a relative at Ota, when a countryman knocked at the door and said
that, having heard that the pope was returning to Cargesi next day,,
he came to offer the priest a lift in his cart, as he was going in that
direction on urgent private affairs.
As he would have otherwise been probably compelled to walk,,
and the road was long and tiring, the pope gratefully accepted the
offer, and set out next day with his companion.
As they were slowly climbing a hill near the Calanches, they
heard a curious noise in the bushes. The driver reined in his horse,,
and said to the pope in a grave voice, —
" That noise is produced by knocking two stones together. It
is the signal generally used by the brigands when they wish to
make known their presence and converse with any one. I'm sure
there is a bandit in the brushwood yonder, who' wants to speak to
you. Don't be afraid, but alight, and no harm will befall you."
The pope trembled in every limb, but what could he do, save
obey? He got down from the cart, and a man appeared in the
thicket, and, pushing aside the branches, approached the two travellers.
The stranger's appearance was not calculated to inspire confidence.
His beard was unkempt, his hair dishevelled, and his face seamed
232
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
with lines of dissipation. He held a gun in his hand, and the butt
of a pistol and the handle of a dagger protruded from his vest.
" Are you Csesar Coty, the pope of Cargesi ? " he asked the priest
\ - -
The Pope of Cargesi.
" I knew you would pass on your way back, and I wanted to see you.
Don't be afraid of me ; 1 am from Ota, and am a friend of your
father."
So saying, he effusively embraced the pope, and whispered in
his ear, —
^//^.^■>
An old Greek of Cargesi.
A STRANGE CONFESSION. 235
" I want to make my confession to you. 1 have many sins to
avow, much restitution to make. Follow me into the wood ! "
Then, to the driver of the cart, he cried sharply, —
" Drive on, do you hear ! I want to be alone with the pope."
Bandit and priest then entered the wood.
The pope said, " Why don't you go to your own parish priest at
Ota?" To which the brigand roughly replied, "What's that to do
with you ? Aren't you also a priest ? "
The pope then seated himself on a stone. The bandit, laying
on one side his gun, pistol, and dagger, knelt down among the
brambles, and beat his breast.
" Seeing his penitence, I gave him absolution," said the pope
to me.
When they parted, the brigand embraced his confessor several
times, and thanked him warmly for the good deed he had done.
" I feel so relieved now, for I suffered terribly from remorse in
the wild solitudes where I dwell alone," said he.
The bandit was named Pascuale. He was a native of Ota, and
only three months later gendarmes surprised and " destroyed " him
in a cave, in the middle of that same wood where he had confessed
and had been shriven.
In Corsica, the word " destroy " is used when the killing of
brigands is in question.
As the pope told me this story, we approached the village, and in
the silence of the night heard distant voices singing old lanienti.
S art one.
W
CHAPTER VI.
Sartene. — Marriage Customs. — Good Friday Procession,— The Catenaccio and the
Black Penitents. — A Romantic Vendetta. — The Tarantula. — Bonifacio. — The
Straits. — The Lion of Roccapina,
E were already some dis-
tance along the road
next morning, when the first
sun-rays smote the pink pro-
montory on which Cargesi is
perched like a sea-bird's nest.
I saw the white houses and the
belfries of the two churches of
different rites glittering in the
distance, amid the deep purple
of the fields, and the hedges of
cochineal plant. The sound of
church bells echoed across the
plain : a few spirals of smoke
from the household fires curled
upward in the still air, and then,
as we turned a corner, the picture
disappeared.
Anto, breaking his usual silence, began to chant a plaintive
236
White Penitents.
BETTER DEAD THAN LIVING. 237
lamento, and the horses, conscious that they were returning home-
wards, broke into a brisk gallop.
We returned, by the same route as we had come, to Ajaccio, where
next day I took the steamer to Propriano. The night had been
stormy, and the mountains raised their snowy summits through a
flurry of torn cloud-wrack.
Ajaccio, enjoying its usual immunity from bad weather, slept in
light, the breeze scarcely rustling its palm trees, while the waters of
the harbour gently lapped the base of the lofty buildings on the
marge. But nearer the open sea the shores of the gulf were beaten
by angry waves. The horizon was an undulating line of white-
crested billows, and Cape Muro was ever and anon obscured by the
flying spindrift.
The passage took two hours, and the landing at Propriano was a
matter of some difficulty, the harbour being exposed to the full force
of westerly gales.
My clothes still damp with foam, and my face still tingling
with the lash of the wind, I took my place on the diligence for
Sartene.
The road winds considerably, crosses the Rizzanese, and turns
to the right, when Sartene comes suddenly into view^, situated on the
slope of a hill, beyond a rocky landslip, whence olive groves flow
down to the plain like livid cascades.
From a distance, the town resembles an immense fortress, its
rectangular and singularly tall houses, the dark windows of which
resemble loopholes, rising from among natural walls of bare, violet-
coloured granite.
Qn the left, as if to complete the stern picture, rises the bare
summit of the Incudine, and the scarped peaks of Asinao seem to
stab the clouds.
The mountain slope above the town gleams with white torribs,
several of which crown the head of the ridge as with a pale diadem.
The dead decidedly have a more joyful dwelling-place than the
living at Sartene, reposing as they do on sunny heights beneath
rustling olive trees in the warm soil which gives birth to a thousand
238
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
flowers. This austere land is dominated by sepulchres, which, seen
from the sea, glitter like the sacred koubbas of Islamism.
Ancient ramparts, which formerly protected the town from the
assaults of the Barbary corsairs, form a line of ruins along the rocks,
and still show traces of turrets and battlements.
Sartene is in the heart of the vendetta country, the district com-
mencing at the summit of San Pietro di Verde, embracing Zicavo,
Sartene, and Porto Vccchio, and ending at the strange hills of Cana.
The Dolmen of Cauria,
It is in this part of the island
that the Corsicans have most retained their old spirit of violence, and
here that family feuds are still most frequent and most fierce.
In the neighbourhood are the famous dolmen and standing stones
of Cauria, called by the Corsicans Stazzone del Diavolo and Stantare.
As in the Balearic Isles and Sardinia, these constructions form a peg
on which archaeologists hang the wildest and most conflicting theories ;
but when all is said and done, their origin remains wrapped in
mystery. Even the earliest writers do not agree as to the aboriginal
inhabitants of Corsica. Pausanias speaks of the Libyans as the first
A PASTORAL WEDDING. 239
.settlers, while Seneca, who lived in exile on the island, attributes to
the people the manners and customs of the Iberians. Herodotus
mentions a Phocian immigration, and Diodorus Siculus states that
the soil was first tilled by Etruscans. But, no doubt, the strange
memorials are the more impressive for the mystery surrounding
their origin ; and in contemplating them, imagination has free scope,
without being fettered by " ill-conditioned facts."
Wandering by the stream which kept company with the road
from Sartene to Cauria, I came upon several shepherds who had
come down from the Coscione to winter in the low country. There
they stood, solemn and motionless, watching their flocks with a
meditative eye from a slab of rock ; just as sad and just as dreamy
on these low hills by the sea, as I had seen them on the heights near
the clouds.
But presently my conception of their impassiveness was rudely
broken by a cavalcade which swept by like a whirlwind across the
rough ground, followed by a second group of horsemen climbing the
hill more leisurely.
It was a shepherd's wedding.
The bride, dressed in white and wearing a wreath of orange
blossom, was mounted on a white mare, escorted by armed cavaliers,
who from time to time fired a volley of joy. The other horsemen
who had first passed went to the fields to pick flowers, and raced back
to the bride, the first to reach her offering the young woman a flower,
and then kissing her and paying her a compliment in verse.
When the bridal party crosses a river or stream, the bride soaks
in the water one of the cakes {canistroni) prepared specially for feast-
days, and launches on the current an olive branch or a flower, symbol
of abundance, peace, and happiness for the shores washed by the
flowing water.
Sometimes she dismounts and kneels by the stream, and, taking
water in her hands, raises them above her head and lets the liquid
fall drop by drop, at the same time murmuring a prayer that this
water, like the lustral water of the ancients, may render her pure and
spotless.
240 THE f^ORGOTTEN ISLES.
When the invocation is concluded, all the water ought to have
left the hand ; evil omens being thus averted. The party then rise
from their knees, remount their horses, and pursue their journey,
singing lamenti.
On reaching the nuptial abode, the bride is met on the threshold
by her mother-in-law, who presents her with a spindle and a key,
at the same time sprinkling her with handfuls of rice and corn,
tokens of abundance.
A volley of musketry is then fired, amid cheers, to mark the
bonaventura, the fortunate welcome, and the . wife is led into her
new home.
The wedding feast lasts till evening, and, at intervals, country
dances are performed to the music of rustic pipes. Each relative
and guest clinks glasses with the newly-married couple, and com-
pliments them in improvised verse.
Sometimes the bridal procession, on arriving near the house,,
encounters a barrier {travata), which the bride cannot surmount
alone without exposing herself to evil omens, but one of the cavaliers
of her escort always assists her to pass.
The ceremony of betrothal {abraccio) generally takes place in
winter.
One evening, the nearest relatives of the girl go to fetch the
young man and bring him to their house. The young people kiss
each other and sit down side by side, while the members of the two
families share a repast of cake and wine, as they arrange the con-
ditions of the marriage contract.
The young man seldom returns home that night. ... It is an
admitted custom, for the abraccio binds the betrothed to each other,
and the subsequent civil contract and religious ceremony merely
ratify the engagement contracted in the two families. The actual
marriage, in fact, takes place much later, and it is nothing unusual
for the bride at that time either to have just had or to be about to
have her first child.
If the man dies before marriage, the children of the voluntary
union are treated as fully legitimate, and are entitled to their due
MARRIAGE CUSTOMS. 24 1
share of the inheritance, while the girl wears mourning and is
regarded as a widow.
When the betrothed pair do not belong to the same village, the
bride goes on horseback to her husband's home, escorted by often
as many as forty or fifty cavaliers. When the cavalcade nears the
village, the young men hurry ahead at the top of their speed, and
the first to reach the house fetches an olive branch, a bouquet, and
a white veil, prepared beforehand by the husband's family, and
hastens back with them to the bride, who then enters the village
at a gallop, holding the branch in her hand. As they pass down
the street, all the windows are thrown open, and rice, wheat, and
flowers are showered on the couple. These are the grazie or good
wishes, symbolical of abundance and prosperity.
The customs vary a little, of course, in different villages. Thus,
at Ghisonacce, the bride goes to church provided with a collection
of pocket-handkerchiefs, more or less embroidered according to
her means, and distributes them among her friends, each and all
of whom come out to kiss her, as she passes their house.
As soon as the bride's foot touches the ground before her
husband's house, a young girl presents her with a bouquet ; and when
she has entered and is seated, a little boy is placed on her knees,
generally a brother or cousin of the bridegroom. This is done in
the hope that the young wife's first child will be a boy. Another
quaint custom, now seldom observed, however, is that of washing
the bride's face with wine, as soon as she enters the house.
The guests are supposed to keep the bride and bridegroom
company on the three evenings before the wedding, and to ac-
company them to church on the three Sundays following the
marriage-day.
In poor families, the bride's dowry consists of a distaff and
spindles, and a capitala or pad with which to carry burdens on her
head. After the wedding the family of the sposata and the nearest
relatives contribute bread, ham, sausages, and canistroni (the national
cakes) towards the larder of the new household.
So much I learned of Corsican marriage customs while riding back
16
242 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
to Sartene from the dolmen of Cauria ; and when we reached
the convent of SS. Cosmas and Damian near the town, the
upper windows of the tall buildings were all aflame with the last
sunset rays.
The evenings at Sartene are dull and melancholy. The great
square, called the Porta, surrounded on three sides by mausoleum-
like houses, borders on a deep valley, which at night seems an
unfathomable abyss. The narrow alleys of the old town, sombre
enough by day, are gloomy defiles of black masonry at night.
Moreover, the streets are not always safe, and it is nothing unusual
to meet with characters who, to say the least, are suspicious. A
friend of my own, passing through a street one night, heard the
rattle of a musket. , " Who's there ? " he cried. " Go your way !
It doesn't concern you ! " was the answer. On another occasion, he
saw a man disguised as a woman with a faldetta on his head, and
armed to the teeth. Only a month before my arrival he was
stopped, as he was returning home, by two men, who, after scrutinising
his face by the vague moonlight, said, " You can go on ! You arc
not the person we are looking for ! "
Brigands often visit the cafes of an evening, usually in disguise ;
and one may see a group of gendarmes at one table, while a bandit
is treating his friends at the next.
I myself saw a well-known criminal, who had committed two
murders, walking down the public street chatting with a gendarme ;
though it is fair to add that the man had been acquitted of these
particular charges, on the ground that he had acted under provocation.
One of the most familiar objects on the Porta was a poor,
emaciated creature, who had had both ankle-bones broken by a shot
intended for another man.
The great, dull square, surrounded by tall, forbidding-looking
houses, on which the gateway leading to the old quarter opens like
the orifice of a cave, has been, and still is, occasionally the stage for
dramatic scenes. It was for a long time the battle-ground of the
two opposing factions of the town, and its grey stones have echoed
to the rattle of musketry and the cries of the wounded. Nowadays
GOOD FRIDAY AT SART^NE.
243
the most striking spectacle to be seen at Sartene is the Good Friday
procession. At dusk on that day every house is lighted up, and
for once in the year, at all events, the obscurest corners of the town
are illuminated. The road from the valley is crowded with country
folk from the adjacent villages and shepherds from the hills.
Suddenly the great doors of the parish church are thrown open,
and the Confraternity of the Holy Sacrament emerges. The peni-
tents wear a
white tunic dc'
scending to their
heels, their head
is covered by a
cowl of the same
hue, and over
their shoulders
is a short red
cloak with a Host }
embroidered in
gold on the
breast. They
advance slowly ^
in two long
lines, carrying
candles in their
hands, and in
the midst of
them walks the catenaccio, representing the Christ as the bearer of the
sins of the world. He wears a long black cape, his head is hidden
beneath a sable cowl pierced with two eye-hole's, and his feet are
bare, w^hile his right leg drags a large iron chain, and his shoulders
are bowed by the weight of an immense cross. The catenaccio is a
penitent, who thus expiates some crime or grave sin, and the part,
with the countenance of the Prior of the Penitents, is often taken
by a brigand.
Behind the catenaccio follow the Black Penitents, carrying a bier
Penitents and Monks.
244 ^^^^ FORGOTTEN ISLES.
supporting the figure of Christ, which has been removed from the
great cross. The Hmbs of the figure are jointed, and fall into natural
attitudes. This, joined with the livid colour of the flesh, the bleeding
wounds, and the thorny crown from which the blood seems to trickle
drop by drop, produces a realism of effect almost cruel.
The solemn procession proceeds through the tortuous streets to
the oratory of San Bastiano, where an image of the Virgin Mary,
draped with crape, is seen weeping by the tomb of Christ. The
only light comes from a few candles, in whose dim radiance the
ghastly figure of the dead, the immense arms of the cross, and
the black-robed penitents appear like so many phantoms. Some-
times the moon is just rising over the mountains, and lends her pale
light to the strange spectacle. After a brief pause the cortege
returns to the church, followed by the parish clergy chanting the
Miserere, and the entire adult population, bare-headed and often
sobbing, while the rear is brought up by the old women and children.
On reaching the church overlooking Place Porta, from which it
is separated by a terrace, the clergy come to a halt, and a friar
standing on the wall of the terrace, holding the figure of the Christ
in his arms, preaches the Passion to the silent and kneeling crowd.
However sensuous or open to criticism it may be, the scene is
wonderfully impressive. The articulated figure of the Christ leans
its head on the friar's shoulder, and its arms and legs change their
attitudes with the movements of the preacher. Profound silence
prevails, and the stillness of the night is only broken by the
impassioned voice of the friar, whose face is irradiated by the wild
gleam of torches. When the sermon is over, the preacher raises
the two hands of the life-size figure, and makes with them the sign
of the Cross over the people, who thus seem to be blessed by the
effigy itself.
The friar is always a member of the Franciscan community of
SS. Cosmas and Damian near the town. This community consists
of a superior and some twenty friars, who live entirely on the alms
of the townsfolk, never accepting money, but subsisting solely on the
fruits of the earth. In return for the charity of the townspeople,.
A ROMANCE OF REVENGE. 245
the good friars themselves give alms to the poor, visit the sick ana
the dying, follow funerals, and even help in the manual labour of
poor households. The view from the convent is superb, stretching
from the Coscione and the peaks of Asinao to the distant valley
which shelters the village of Carbini. It was in this village that,
at the end of the fourteenth century, arose the strange socialistic
sect of the Giovannali, so called because it recognised only the
Gospel of St. John. The members had an absolute community of
goods, land, money, and even wives. They used to assemble at
night in the churches, and after service extinguish the lights and
hold monstrous orgies. They were excommunicated by Pope
Innocent VI., and, after bitter persecution, were finally massacred
by the Corsicans.
Carbini was subsequently repopulated by families from Sartene.
In modern days the village has been the scene of a remarkable
vendetta story, the end of which has not even yet been seen.
Napoleon Nicolai, of Carbini, eloped with Catherine Lafranchi ;
and the latter's parents refused to consent to their marriage, the
Nicolai being simple farmers, while the Lafranchi passed at Porto
Vecchio for wealthy landowners. After staying at Bastia, the
lovers returned to Porto Vecchio to make a final appeal to the
parents to allow the marriage ; but the family proved obdurate, drove
away the young man and shut up the girl, whom they are said to
have beaten and maltreated. Not long afterwards, moreover, a son of
the house, in order to avenge the honour of his sister, killed Nicolai'.
The shot, which was fired point-blank, set fire to the clothes of the
victim, whose body was so charred as to be almost unrecognisable.
Nicolai's young brother, on hearing of the murder, came to Porto
Vecchio, soaked his handkerchief in the wound, and took an oath
of revenge, which he soon afterwards fulfilled. After killing his
brother's murderer, he took to the makis, where he led a wandering
existence for two years. Although a proscribed man, the police
authorities were not hostile to him, his youth, the circumstances
of the murder, and the force of Corsican tradition all being in his
favour. The public prosecutor of Sartene made every effort to take
246 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
him into custody, in order that he might serve a short sentence and
then be free to resume his ordinary life.
But the Lafranchi pursued the young man with unappeasable
ferocity, joining \.\\q gendarmerie in tracking him down, and hesitating
at no stratagem in the hope of destroying him. At length they
learned that one of Nicolai's intimate friends was to be married,
and there was every reason to suppose that Nicolai' himself, with the
generous imprudence of youth, would not fail to attend the wedding.
The surmise proved correct, and on the night of the wedding the
nuptial festivites were rudely interrupted by a loud knocking at
the door. An attempt was made to gain time by parleying with the
gendarmes, but the brigadier, Delbos, insisted upon entering.
The house was entirely surrounded, and resistance was useless.
Nicolai adopted the desperate expedient of donning the robes of the
bride and going to the door on the arm of the bridegroom, who
affected anxiety to go out, in order to leave the room free to the
gendarmes. But the ruse failed, and Nicolai" then sought to escape
by a back window. But as he climbed over the sill, his boots
betrayed him. Two shots were fired, and he fell dead, still attired in
the bride's wedding dress.
Such was the sad end of this young man, who had received a
good education, and only owed his fate to his compliance with the
fatal laws of honour of his race.
During his wanderings in the forest, he composed several lamenti.
The following is a stanza in which he expressed his sorrow and
regret : —
•• DiSGRAZiATO. "Outlawed.
^^ Sono io^ per li foreste "Wandering through the forest,
Tutto V iiiverno All the winter
Esposto a gli iempesie, Exposed to the storm,
Semp7'e eri'anio e pellegrino ; Ever a stranger and pilgrim ;
Dite-mi che vita e questa^ Tell me what life is this,
Una pieira per cuscino With a stone for pillow
La notte sotto alia testa?" Beneath my head by night?"
I met the poor young man's father at Bonifacio. He had left
Carbini, and lived, a prey to gnawing grief, in a house the windows of
A VENOMOUS SPIDER. 247
which were always darkened, brooding over how to avenge the violent
death of his two sons.
NicolaT was a sympathetic figure, but the same cannot be said
of the majority of the outlaws or brigands, of whom, when I was
in Corsica, no fewer than six hundred infested the forests. It is high
time that the romance with which the bandit is invested should be
got rid of. As a matter of fact, four years passed in the makis
suffice to make a man a dangerous assassin. It becomes with them
no longer a question of gratifying private revenge, but of cowardly
assassination. They must gratify their passions at any cost. From
some they demand their money, from others their honour. Knowing
themselves to be objects of terror, their pride becomes unbounded.
Every vestige of human feeling fades away, and the bandit becomes
a creature of brutality, viciousness, and cunning. Rocchini, for
instance, was a feelingless brute ; and the Corsicans, who have a great
knack of bestowing appropriate nicknames, called him the aniinale.
In order not to waste a day on a monotonous road which I already
knew, I left Sartene in the middle of the night. At a short distance
from the town I was shown a wooden cross by the wayside, marking
where Rocchini and another brigand had fired at two gendarmes,
merely to practise their skill. One of the poor fellows was killed,
and the other only escaped owing to his horse jibbing at the report
of the gun.
As we drove on across the desolate country towards the sea, I
fell into a kind of doze, in which I was horribly haunted by my
recollection of an insect I had seen at Cargesi, the only venomous
creature in Corsica. It is called the vialmignato or ragno rosso, and
is a tarantula, a sort of cross between a spider and an ant. Its body
is black, with red spots on the belly, and its head is hard and bony.
When a person is stung by the beast, he is seized with convulsive
tremblings, his temperature falls, and a cold sweat breaks out all
over his body. This is bad enough, but some of the remedies in
vogue among the country folk are perhaps worse. The favourite
mode is to place the sufferer in a hot oven, after first making him
intoxicated with spirits. The shepherds of Sartene burn the afflicted
248 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
place with blazing tow, others plaster it over with potter's earth.
At Zicavo the experiment had been tried of plunging the sufferer
in boiling water, but this empirical remedy had only resulted in the
death of the patient. Personally, I should have preferred the old
method of having the evil exorcised, by persons skilled in the art
of charming away all malefic influences.
Thinking thus I fell more deeply under the enchantment of sleep,
until I imagined I had myself been stung and was baking in the
heat of an oven, which had given me an attack of intermittent fever.
I was awakened from my nightmare by the rays of the rising sun
striking me full in the eyes, and looking out of the window, I saw
ahead a steep hill ending in a chalk cliff surmounted by a cross.
" Yonder is the hermitage of the Trinity ! " said my travelling
companion, rubbing his eyes.
The character of the scenery had completely changed. The stern
mountains and sombre ravines were things of the past. We had
just crossed a sterile region dominated by a lofty rock, the Uomo
de Cagna, which seemed the motionless guardian of these solitudes,
and were now in the southernmost extremity of Corsica, where
nothing was visible save chalky cliffs and arid plains, swept clean'
by the sea wind, with only a few stunted and burnt-up olives to
take the place of the glorious chestnuts and oaks of the interior.
The sun was up when we clambered on loot to the hermitage of'
the Trinity, a white building surrounded by rocks and olive trees.
The prior was slowly pacing up and down by the white wall, conning
his book of hours. He is prior by courtesy, for he lives alone with
but one monk, who acts as begging friar, with the aid of a small
donkey. The latter, though he may have taken no vows, is an
important member of the community, inasmuch as it is his task to
carry the offerings of the faithful.
Looking from the terrace of the convent, the eye follows the
winding of striated cliffs till it reaches the strange outline of Bonifacio,
whose towers and bastions crown the naked rocks of the promontory,
beyond which stretch the wavy lines of the Straits of Bonifacio, and,
further away, the north coast of Sardinia, whose white villages
'■■§M
The Begging Friar
BONIFACIO. 251
and jagged summits carry the sight onward and upward to the
sky-line.
After spending several pleasant hours at the hermitage, entertained
by the grave courtesy of the Italian prior, and the unconscious
humour of his almoner and the donkey, we drove on along the
dusty road to Bonifacio.
Large black crosses stood by the wayside, but they merely
marked religious stations, and not the scenes of murders ; for in
this part of the country vendette are unknown.
The fields were divided by rough stone walls, built with infinite
patience and labour to shelter the vegetation from the violence of the
wind, which blows almost persistently across the arid peninsula.
Sun, wind, dust, and a bleached, clean-swept soil, where the only
plants are a few tufts of pallid wormwood — such is the landward
approach to the rock of Bonifacio.
We reached the town by a long slope hewn out of the rock,
alongside the harbour, which is a deep, narrow lagoon bordered by
ancient ramparts.
The extraordinary situation of the town, perhaps the most
curious in Europe, is best appreciated from seaward, whence one
perceives the massive natural foundations on which it is built, — a
range of lofty, stratified cliffs, the base of which is gnawed away
by the sea, and pierced at intervals by deep caverns, one of which
runs far beneath the town. The line of buildings above is crowned
by the famous Torzone, a massive tower erected in the year 840,
which was for a long period the town's only defence against the
Barbary corsairs. The rocky rampart, falling sheer to the sea, is
crossed by a narrow stairway, the " stairway of the King of Aragon."
Alfonso V. was besieging the town. The Aragonese artillery had
already destroyed the chief defences and set many of the houses
on fire by bombs ; yet the besieged, small in number and weakened
by hunger, still defended themselves with energy, and repulsed the
assailants, when Alfonso had this stairway hewn out of the rock,
without his workmen being perceived from Bonifacio. When it was
completed, he tried to carry the place by assault. The principal
252 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
attack was made on the other side of the town, where women,
children, priests, and monks all took part in the defence, hurling
stones and boiling oil and pitch over the ramparts, and fighting
hand to hand with the Aragonese who reached the parapet. At the
height of the conflict, a woman named Margaret Bobia suddenly
perceived the invaders swarming into the town in the rear, by means
of the staircase, of which the brave defenders had not even known
the existence. A rush was made to this new point of attack, and
after a fierce tussle the Aragonese were repulsed and large numbers
hurled over the ramparts into the sea.
On the second day after my arrival, I had an experience of one
of the gales which are so frequent on this coast. The wind seemed
to shake the very cliffs, and the town was full of the noise of flapping
shutters and creaking roofs. The sea thundered along the rocks,
and the straits were a boiling cauldron of foam and spindrift.
Perched on a giddy corner, overhanging the water at a height of
some two hundred feet, I passed the entire morning watching the
waves breaking one over the other in their mad rush landwards,
while the whole promontory seemed to quiver like the bows of
a vessel meeting the shock of the billows. Following with my eye
the rough road of the campo roinanello, I saw looming through the
mist the dark outline of the island of Lavezzi, the scene of the
wreck of the frigate Semzllante, a catastrophe which has been
rendered classic by Alphonse Daudet, in one of the most charming
of the sketches whimsically entitled " Letters from my Mill."
Nearly a thousand bodies are said to have been thrown up on the
coast after this terrible wreck, among them being the body of
the captain in full uniform.
The people of Bonifacio speak an old Genoese dialect, and bear
no resemblance to the other inhabitants of Corsica, by whom they
are to a certain extent looked down upon, their neighbours of the
district of Sartene especially speaking of them with a contempt and
dislike only second to the hatred entertained for the Corsicans'
old enemies, the Genoese. Undeterred by this, however, the good
folk of Bonifacio are industrious and full of initiative, though prudent
i:|||llllllllllllllllllllllllllinilllllllll|llilllllllllllll!l|{lllllllllll|IHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIllllU!
llilllllllIllilllllli|[i!!tllllllllllllllltllUlllillli:illllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllilllllllll:l!Ulillllllllllllllll IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIUUI
A LEGEND OF BONIFACIO.
255
to a degree. The men, mounted
on donkeys, go off in the morn-
ing to work in the fields, and
return in the evening on their
tiny mounts, which are almost
hidden by their burden of vege-
tables, trusses of hay, and little
barrels of water, filled at the
spring by the gate of the town.
It is amusing to watch the
return of the workers, as the
motley procession climbs the
steep slope leading to the ancient
fortified gateway of the upper
town.
The portcullis
of this gate is made
of wood from the
wreckage of the
Semillante.
There is a
legend that, after
Bonifacio had been
sacked by the Sara-
cens, some passers-
by perceived an
ox and an ass
reverently kneel-
ing before a spring
called the Corcone.
The news of this
unusual spectacle
spread through the town, and the clergy came down to
see the animals, who still remained in the same worshipping atti-
tude. The usually placid spring was boiling like a geyser, and
Ancient Gateway.
256 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
in the midst a small piece of wood was gyrating on the surface.
The fragment was recognised by the clergy as a relic of the True
Cross. Ever since that time, when storms rage in the straits and
vessels are in peril, the clergy carry the relic to the top of the
cliffs and solemnly bless the waves with it, that He who said, " Peace,
be still ! " may again calm the tumultuous waters.
The Bonifacians are very superstitious, and to the usual beliefs
and customs of the Corsican mountaineers add several of their own.
Mothers never allow their children to sleep with their feet point-
ing to the door, as it is thus that corpses are carried out of the
house. When a member of a family is sick or absent, his place
at table is laid as usual, but never occupied ; and that side of the
table is even placed against the wall, in order that no one may
sit down there by inadvertence.
When noon strikes, sailors on a land journey pick up four little
stones, which they throw, one in front, another to left, another to right,
and the fourth behind them, thus making the sign of the cross,
and averting evil chances. The will-o'-the-wisps or jack-o'-lanterns
which sometimes play on the rock of Lavezzi, where the drowned
sailors of the Semillante are buried, are regarded with the greatest
terror by old sailors, so much so as to render them quite ill.
The tillers of the soil, on their side, are quite as superstitious,
and when their fruit trees begin to wither, call in the Capuchin
monks to come and avert the evil by blessing the trees.
Bonifacio has sheltered ' two great men in its time — Charles V.
and Napoleon. Bonaparte remained in garrison here for five months.
The old people show a ruined house with an unrailed staircase, up
which Napoleon escaped when attacked one evening by " roughs,"
as he was coming up from the port.
In the same street as this house is a small chapel dedicated to
Saint Roch, and held in great veneration by sailors. It was here
that the last victim died of the plague, which decimated Bonifacio
in 1598.
Several churches show that Bonifacio was once an important
city, and still contain relics of its bygone wealth. The porch of
FAREWELL TO CORSICA.
257
Santa Maria Maggiore is overshadowed by an immense loggia, where
the notables of the town used to assemble to discuss public afifairs.
The mutilated belfry of this church is very elegant, and some of its
ornamentation is highly artistic.
The church of St. Dominic is also interesting, and contains two
immense reliquaries, representing, the one the martyrdom of Saint
Bartholomew, and the other St. Mary Magdalene. Their weight
is considerable, and on the occasion of religious processions, each
The Lion of Roccapina.
requires twelve men to carry it. To be one of the bearers is an
eagerly sought honour, to obtain which even money is paid, but
the coveted honour is a burdensome toil, and during the pro-
cession not a few of the perspiring bearers are heard to swear and
mutter such oaths as " Sangue di san Bourtouinia ! "
But my stay in Bonifacio soon came to an end, and for the
last time I passed along the dusty road past the hermitage of the
17
258 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
Trinity, on my way to Ajaccio to embark on the steamer for
Sardinia.
Looking across the sea, I saw, beyond the projecting reefs of
the Monacci^ a long cape surmounted by an ancient watch-tower,
and terminating in the rock known as the Lion of Roccapina, a
stony monster, pensively watching the sea and the distant coast of
Sardinia.
part III.
SARDINIA
Roman Bridge at Porto Torres.
CHAPTER 1.
First Impressions. — Porto Torres and Roman Remains. — San Gavino. — Sassari. — A
Town of Contrasts. — The Zappatori. —
Carnival Time. — The Battle of the Standard.
— Old Monasteries. — Sennori.
SARDINIA, rarely
visited even by its
Italian masters, and
almost unknown to the
rest of Europe, had
always haunted my
imagination as a kind
of accursed land, blighted
by malaria, and peopled
by moro.se beings, half
savage and wholly
brigand. My knowledge
of the classics brought to
mind the not very reassur-
ing words of Cicero to his
brother, " Cura, mi f rater ^
ut valeas et quamvis sit
A Sardinian of "Logudoro.
261
262 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
hiems Sardiniavi istam esse cogites',' and again this line of the poet, —
•' Scd t?'istis coslo ac multa vitiata paludcT
The Romans, I was aware, had used Sardinia as a Van Diemen's
Land for convicts sentenced to transportation, knowing that their
graves were dug there in advance. "You will find Sardinia even at
Tivoli," said the poet, when he wished to say, " Whatever you may
do, you must die ! " " Sardinia will either cause you fear or pity,"
said a Corsican friend. " But," he added, " even if you should be
saddened at first, do not be cast down, for you will find much to
charm and surprise you."
It was in this spirit of sadness, tempered by expectation, that,
after a stormy night passage from Ajaccio, I watched the cold sky
slowly warming to a rosy dawn, against which stood a range of
mountains. Over the starboard bow stretched the long rocky belt
forming the Island of Asinara, and far astern the hills of Corsica
hid their snowy summits in radiant cloud-fleeces. Straight ahead
was Sardinia, called by the Pelasgians by the Greek name of IcJiniisay
because of the resemblance of its outline to the shape of a sandal.
The steamer forged slowly on, and Porto Torres, the first
Sardinian town and the port of Sassari, hove in sight. Its appearance
is not inviting. The harbour resembles a stagnant pond, and the
low houses on either side of the long main street are squalid and
swarming with pallid children, like a back alley in London slums.
Yet lordly memories dwell in the deserted buildings beyond .and in
the ruined monuments of the diverse races which once inhabited the
town. The Spaniards, at the height of their glory, built yonder
embrasured turrets, reflected in the waters of the harbour. The
Romans constructed those ruins, appearing through a trellis-work
of cactus, as a Temple of Fortune, and the crumbling walls hard
by are those of the Palazzo del re barbaro, an old basilica, restored
by the Emperor Philip the Arabian in A.D. 247.
The rising ground above the town is crowned by the church of
San Gavino, dating from the eleventh century, and restored in the
thirteenth by a seigneur of Logudoro. Beyond the houses and ruins,
PORTO TORRES.
263
a landscape of ample, severe outlines undulates back to the inland
horizon, — a pallid, sad-looking country under a torn sky of dead
white clouds, with deep-blue spaces in between.
Porto Torres, which only now sepms beginning to awake from
the long slumber which fell upon it at the close of the Middle Ages,
was in its day a great city, and, under its Roman name of Turris
Sardinians of Porto Torres.
Lzbyssonzs, capital of Northern Sardinia. Its ancient splendour is
proved by the mutilated statues and marble divinities still found
embedded in the marshy soil, and the precious mosaics, columns and
capitals, elaborate weapons, coins, and medals still struck by the
ploughshares and spades of the farmers. There is, moreover, still
visible evidence of greatness, in the ruins of the palace and aqueducts,
and the massive seven-arched Roman bridge crossing the ancient
jluinen Turritanum.
264
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
The French vice-consul at Sassari accompanied me on my
pilgrimage to these ruins of past greatness, along the grass-grown
vestiges of the Roman way, where we encountered Sardinian horse-
men of strange aspect, wearing the national capotu on their heads,
while their long,
raven hair and
untrimmed beards
contrasted oddly
with the classic
regularity of their
profiles. The con-
sul, who regarded
such passers-by
with the indif-
ference born of
custom, was sur-
prised at my taking
the trouble to stop
and look at the
people.
The Roman
bridge crosses the
mouth of the river.
Its buttresses,
formed of blocks
of porphyry, sink
into the stagnant
water, which lies
still and dark amid
tall grasses, with-
out sound or ripple, reflecting the massive arches, like a black'
burnished mirror. But for all its apparent stillness, the water is for
ever actively distilling poison, and Porto Torres is notorious as one
of the most malarious towns in Sardinia.
The basilica of San Gavino, now merely the parish church of
Porch of San Gavino.
SAN GAVINO. 265
the town, was at the ^nd of the fifteenth century the cathedral
of a powerful archbishopric. As early as the eighth century its
walls witnessed solemn services of thanksgiving, celebrated by the
magnates of Torres for victories gained over the Saracens, whose
bodies and armour were heaped up on the steps before the porch
The interior of the basilica is divided into three naves, or, more
properly speaking, a central nave and two side aisles, separated by
marble, granite, and porphyry columns in different styles. These
pillars, several of which came from the Roman Temple of Fortune,
uphold the juniper-wood beams supporting the open roof. One of
these beams is always more or less humid — a phenomenon regarded
as miraculous by the simple country folk. The crypt contains the
bones of three martyrs, San Froto, San Giannario, and San Gavino
who is the patron saint of Northern Sardinia. •
His feast day, celebrated on the eve of Whit-Sunday, is a time of
rejoicing, during which Forto Torres assumes an unwontedly animated
aspect, and is invaded by troops of country people in gala costume
from all parts of the district of Logudoro. Many of the pilgrims
come with the object of making the round of each column in the
basilica on their knees, kissing the pillars devoutly, and concluding
with prayers before the equestrian statue of the saint. The legend
runs that San Gavino raised one of the columns from the bottom
of the sea, and, placing it upright on his saddle-bow, carried it into
the church.
Before leaving Forto Torres the pilgrims, taking their wives
behind them, ride their horses breast-deep into 'the sea ; for the
waters of the gulf, formerly sanctified by the martyrs who were
thrown into them, possess great virtue and render the horses immune
from all maladies ! '_-
The proprietary rights of the basilica are vested in the town
of Sassari, on condition that the municipality visits Forto Torres
year on the feast of San Gavino, and holds a corporate banquet,
at which the one indispensable dish is— a rib of veal ! The
members of the town council in their robes of office, preceded by
mace-bearers, are formally received by the canon in residence at
266 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
Porto Torres, who, standing on a platform, gravely presents the
keys of the church to the Sindaco. The latter, after taking them
in his hand to notify his proprietorship, gives them back to the
canon and begs him to watch over the charge confided to him by
the town of Sassari.
Another strange custom, which was still practised a few years
ago, was for pilgrims from Sassari to visit the crypt of San Gavino,
and there give themselves the discipline till the blood flowed, chanting
the Miserere the while.
From Porto Torres to Sassari takes three-quarters of an hour
in the train. The line crosses a vast uncultivated waste, where the
only objects to break the monotony are a ruined nuragJie or a broken
arch of the old Roman aqueduct. At intervals one catches sight
of a solitary shepherd, watching herds of black goats browsing on
the thorny bushes covering the thin soil ; but not a tree, big or little,
gladdens the eye with its verdure or enlivens the solitude with its
waving shadow. All this confirmed the gloomy anticipations I had
formed of Sardinian town and country life, and I was inclined
to regret that I had conie to the island, when the scenery began
to change. First came cochineal plants and fig trees, on the low
ground ; then, wooded heights and cultivated fields ; and finally, the
town. The brief autumn day was just closing, and the last sunset
rays reddened the roofs of the houses, from which the smoke of
evening fires was rising in vertical blue columns : the wind was
lulled, and a crescent m.oon hung over the town like a pale
diadem.
Sassari, the chief town of the island next to Cagliari, is built
on the slope of a hill, looking towards the sea, surrounded by forest.
The courtesy of its people is proverbial. They are distinguished
both by customs and dialect from the remainder of the island, and
speak, indeed, with a certain contempt of the other inhabitants.
The latter are Sardinians, that is, barbarians ; but tJi3y are
Sassaresi.
The town itself, apart from the main streets and public squares,
is a maze of tiny streets, so narrow that one often has to stand in
SCENES AT SASSARI. 26/
a doorway to permit of the passage of some Sardinian horseman,
cloaked in black, with his hand on his hip, his gun across the saddle
bow, his long pipe in his mouth, and his wife riding on a pillion
behind him.
The shops in these narrow ways are dark and low-pitched,
and through the half-opened doors one generally perceives in the
darkness the dim lamps burning before a pale Madonna. The men
and women who pass and repass in the sombre passages, seem as
unsubstantial as shadows. Some of the fronts of these buildings,
however, contrast strongly with the dark interiors. A red flag
floating over the doorway, inscribed in black letters with the word
Vino, indicates a wine shop, and in nearly every case the character
of the goods sold in the establishment is told by the sign over
the door — a piece of coal, a tomato, a candle, a dried fig, macaroni,
a loaf, an apple, or a flagon of oil or wine, often both in the same
bottle, suspended by a chain from the lintel. The chief article on
sale appears to be a splendid kind of waxy-looking apple, called
inelappw, heaps of which lie on nearly every threshold, filling the
whole street with their sweet smell.
Sassari is above all a town of contrasts.
With its chief buildings, palaces, institutions, and fine shops, the
place looks as modern as a brand-new suburb of London, yet the
majority of the people still conform to the customs of their ancestors,
and preserve a savage self-assertiveness of demeanour, as if in their
hearts, like the Goths in ancient Rome, they secretly despised the
conveniences and luxury of civilisation. The sumptuous wares
of Paris, lavishly displayed behind plate-glass fronts, are pas.sed
by with scarcely a glance of curiosity by proud beggars clad
in little but rags. A tattered garment is considered an adorn-
ment, almost an affectation and an advertisement of the dignity
of impecuniosity.
The air of activity and industry in the streets is very striking.
Every one seems in a hurry about his or her own business, and the
cafes, of which there are but few, are little frequented.
On the evening of the day after my arrival, when the darkening
268 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
sky cast upon the earth the strange blue twilight, peculiar to the
white cities of the south at nightfall, I went for a ramble in the
poorer quarters of the town. The narrow streets seemed all alive
with flying sparks from the charcoal-braziers, which it is the custom
of the housewives to kindle at nightfall in the open air, before prepar-
ing the evening meal. Some of the women were leaning over the
red glow and blowing with all the force of their lungs, others
were fanning the charcoal with round straw mats, and the
lazy ones were letting the wind act as bellows. The strange
performance is repeated every night, as the houses in general have
no chimneys.
The churches of Sassari are very numerous, but for the most part
uninteresting. The fagade of the cathedral is striking, but over-
decorated. In bright sunlight, however, the peculiar yellow tinge of
the stone produces wonderful effects, and the lofty cornices and
profuse sculpture gleam almost like burnished metal.
As usual, my errant footsteps led me to one of the pompous but
lugubrious ceremonies which, in all these Mediterranean islands,
invest death with the horror attached to it by the Catholic Church,
when she speaks of it as one of the " four last things to be remem-
bered." Entering the cathedral one evening, I found the nave
dark and full of mystery. A black carpet embroidered with yellow
lay on the flags in front of the choir. The design on the carpet
was a representation of Death in the form of a crowned skeleton
sitting on a throne, with a sceptre in one hand and a scythe in
the other, while at his feet were heaped a tiara, a mitre, a bishop's
crosier, a helmet with waving plumes, some half-opened books,
and a bird. Immense candelabra stood at the four corners of this
strange tapestry. On one side stood a priest holding a thurible
in one hand, while the other was over his heart. Opposite him
was an old server bearing a silver cross, the stem of which rested on
the ground. On the third side were three priests in black capes,
bordered with yellow, the midmost one of whom was chanting
the service for the dead. When the prayers were over, the officiating
priest blessed the black tapestry with holy water, while another priest
A HYGIENIC WORKING-DAY,
269
censed it. The candles were then extinguished and the carpet was
rolled up and removed.
Coming out of the dark cathedral into the open air a,lmost
blinded my eyes, although the hour was late and daylight was
failing. There was just a glimpse of pale blue through a ragged,
cloudy sky, and a rich crimson light fluted the high cornices of
the building.
It was the hour when the zappatori, day field-labourers, return to
the town.
Here they
came, singly -- -^^y-s.==£s^^==r^-
or in groups,
some mount-
ed, some on
foot, carrying
their wallets,
and each
leading in a
leash the little
dog which
guards their
p r ov i s i on s
while they
are at work.
They leave the town just after
the sun is up and return before
sunset, in order to avoid the
miasma which rises chiefly before
sunrise and immediately after sun-
down. The length of the working
day is thus necessarily regulated
by considerations of health, but it is an arrangement at which the
proprietors grumble considerably, more especially as the men show
no anxiety to make up for the hours wasted in going to and
returning from labour, but; on the contrary, display a remarkable
Zappatori.
270 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
ingenuity in still further curtailing the actual period of work, by a
whole series of short intervals for refreshments, and adopt every
expedient to do as little as possible.
But the masters dare not quarrel with them. The zappatori
form a powerful guild, or, to be more modern, " union," which has
to be reckoned with at Sassari, where for over a century there has
been a sort of labour exchange. The men assemble on some public
place, generally at the entrance of the town, as in Palestine in
the time of Christ, and wait there to be hired. The engagement
is generally for a week, and since the year 1848 the wages have
always to be paid in advance.
The zappatori form one of the ancient guilds known as gremii,
which have existed at Sassari since the Middle Ages. These guilds
play a prominent part in public processions, particularly in that of
the candellzert, the most popular of all.
In order to take part in this ceremony, which is in fulfilment of
a vow made during the plague which raged in the town in 1582, the
representatives of the guilds attire themselves as fantastically as
possible, and carry immense candlesticks decked with many-coloured
ribbons. The statue of the Virgin, carried in this procession,
represents her as dead and lying on a bed.
Throughout Sardinia the inhabitants of the towns give themselves
up to merrymaking with the careless enthusiasm of children. At
Sassari during carnival time the entire population is masked, and
assembles in the public squares to dance and play all sorts of high
jinks. On Shrove-Monday, young girls in costume perambulate the
town with ba.skets of violets, which they distribute among the people
as they pass.
A curious observance to be noted is that, during the carnival,
every one, from the richest to the poorest, wears gloves. Some of
the people are marvellous mimics. They will imitate the prefect or
a city magistrate to the life, copying his clothes and gestures, and
making up their faces to resemble his very features. Whence arise
endless quips and cranks and delicious merriment.
On Shrove-Tuesday the figure of King Carnival is carried through
RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES. 27 I
the town, and burnt in the evening on the Piazza Castello, the chief
square of Sassari, to the sound of music. The people then dance
the national douro-douro, by the light of Venetian lamps. During
the last three days of carnival, the municipality is compelled to
engage men to sweep up the litter of confetti and other missiles in
the streets.
Yet, during all this excitement and abandonment to sheer merry-
making, there is never an angry word nor a quarrel, not even a single
case of drunkenness. In fact, I never once met a drunken man
during the whole time of my stay in Sardinia.
The religious ceremonies, apart from the candellieri processions
mentioned above, are very curious at Sassari. They all preserve a
certain element of grimness, traceable no doubt to Spanish traditions.
During the last three days of Holy Week, the procession of the
Passion takes place. This somewhat resembles the Corsican pro-
cessions. The figure of Christ, after the taking down from the cross,
is carried in a white sheet by penitents, followed by men dressed
like Jews and wearing cardboard masks painted to resemble the
traditional Jewish physiognomy. These carry the instruments of
the Passion, while others, by some strange freak of anachronism or
ignorance, bear, on a salver, a decapitated head. Finally comes the
Virgin in tears, clad in mourning, a handkerchief in her hand and
seven swords protruding from her heart.
The sepulchres, or Altars of Repose, on which the Host is kept
from Maunday Thursday till Good Friday morning, are ornamented
with a number of small vases, containing wheat. This is sown a
fortnight previously, and, if it germinates without delay, is considered
a fortunate augury for the next harvest.
In 1848 religious processions were forbidden, but the cholera
visitation of 1855 was regarded as a judgment inflicted on the city
for its abandonment of these pious practices, and they were forthwith
restored.
A certain canon called Scavo, once called down upon himself
the curses of all the guilds in Sassari (and heaven knows they are
numerous enough ! ) for ordering the churches to be closed at sunset,
272 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
night processions by torchlight being a diversion of which the people
are passionately fond.
Nevertheless, the canon acted from excellent motives, as the
processions have, on more than one occasion, given rise to scandal
and even tumults, chiefly owing to the jealousies subsisting between
the various guilds, notably between that of the tailors and that of
the cordwainers.
One night, on the feast of St. Crispin, the cordwainers were
marching in full array to the chapel of their patron, while the tailors
were already in church, praying before the statue of St. Anthony,
represented with his traditional pig. This animal was also portrayed
on the white silk banner of the guild, which had been placed in a
corner of the church. While the tailors were devoutly murmuring
litanies, a young shoemaker, seeing the banner, amused himself by
drawing two immense horns on the head of the pig. After the
prayers, the banner was displayed before the statue of St. Anthony
to be blessed, and the awful profanation became plain to see. The
tailors' guild rose as one man, and rushed upon the cordwainers
with loud shouts and imprecations. Knives and daggers were
drawn, and before order could be restored many were wounded
on either side.
One of the principal religious festivals of Sassari is the feast day
of San Gavino, whose relics are preserved in the crypt of the
basilica of Porto Torres, while his statue decorates the cathedral.
This statue, which is about three feet high, is of massive silver. In
1793, the French troops landed on the northern coast of Sardinia,
and the terrified inhabitants flocked to Sassari to invoke the
protection of San Gavino. They explained to him their position
and trouble, and implored him to save them from their enemies.
In order to secure the saint on their side, they represented to him
that he himself would suffer from the invasion. "O San Gavino,"
said they, "observe that, more for thee than for ourselves, it is
necessary that the enemy do not conquer our country. Remember,
O Saint ! that thou art of precious metal, and these French robbers
of churches will make of thy sacred person two bushels of small
THE INTERCESSION OF SAN GAVINO.
273
coin. Reflect, O Gavino ! that thou wilt be transformed into
innumerable pesos de cincu " (Sardinian pieces of five soldi).
Whether because the saint deprecated being converted into coin
Water-carrier at Sassari.
or for some other reason, the French retired, and the island was
saved, — a result naturally attributed to the influence of Gavino.
The days passed quickly at Sassari, although it was the depth
of the winter season, and the rains were persistent and threatened
to continue for another . month.
18
274 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
Nevertheless, whenever the sun did break through the clouds,
it was as if the country suddenly threw off mourning for the attire
of a bride. In these bright intervals, I managed to visit most of
what is worth seeing in and around Sassari.
The much-vaunted Fontana del Rqsello^ on the east side of the
town, is a marble fountain in the tasteless style of the seventeenth
century, with four statues at the corners representing the four seasons.
An abundant flow of water is vomited from the mouths of several
masks, and the fountain is ornamented with the arms of the town of
Sassari and of Aragon, and surmounted by . an equestrian statue of
San Gavino, in warrior's costume. One side of the erection bears the
inscription, " Feliciter regnanie potentissimo Hispaniaruin et Sai'dini
rege Philippo III.;' etc.
More interesting than the fountain were the scenes among the
water-carriers and their small donkeys, who convey the water to the
town in small barrels. They were the smallest and most submissive
donkeys I had ever seen. They must have been strong too, poor
beasts, to carry three barrels of water and the driver seated atop, up
the steep road to the town.
The neighbourhood of Sassari is rich in old monasteries, now
chiefly occupied by modern, " active " orders, whose obliterated life
in the silence and chill peace of the lofty monastic corridors is one of
sublime devotion. Among those I visited, was one formerly occupied
by Capuchins, but which now shelters the sisters of St. Vincent of Paul,,
who have converted the building into a home for foundlings.
Poverty, and even distress, seemed to exhale from the old walls
and float in the twilight of the dim corridors. The colours of the
sparse flowers in the garden gained in brilliancy, from the contrast
which they afforded to the severe-looking building, under a cloudy
.sky, on a land sobered by autumn.
But the children rescued by the holy women lead a life of useful
industry. The very young children are left to play about to their
hearts' content, but the older girls weave for the convent, and the
boys are taught trades which generally enable them to earn their
own livelihood after leaving the institution.
NATURE AND ART. 37/
The sisters of St. Vincent of Paul conduct several important
charitable institutions in Sardinia, having houses at Alghero, Ozieri^
Oristano, Iglesias, and Cagliari, but all serve their probation at the
mother-house in Paris.
Owing to this fact, French is better known in Sardinia than in
any other Italian province.
Another monastery which I visited was that of San Pietro in
Silchi, a massy pile of buildings buried in olive groves, and occupied
by Franciscans and sisters of charity, the latter of whom have a home
for old people. The nuns' garden, which is magnificent, is tended
entirely by the pensioners, who thus recompense to some extent the
care lavished on them by the good sisters.
At the Franciscan friary we were received by the superior in an
immense sacristy, hung with weird-looking pictures of saints in
archaic attitudes, made dimly visible by the light from the high
windows. The church was damp and dark, and our footsteps
re-echoed lugubriously on the tombstones forming the flags, while
the friars appeared mere ghosts in the gloom.
As the twilight fell and we drove homeward along the road,,
gleaming mysteriously white through the trees, I was haunted by the
memory of this church, as of something vague and distant like
a dream. The other buildings of Sassari, however, are far from
possessing this charm of vagueness. The prefecture is vast, and its
apartments are sumptuously furnished, but in the most execrable
taste, at once pretentious and ugly.
There is an interesting collection of pictures at the town-hall,,
and a library of 37,000 volumes at the university, besides the
beginnings of a museum of antiquities, but, otherwise, nature is far
more attractive than art at Sassari.
Unfortunately, nature had hitherto been marred by almost
incessant rain ; but at length came a Sunday morning when my
sleeping-room was inundated by a flow of southern sunlight, and I
eagerly fell in with a proposal of my friend Mariani that we should
visit Sennori ; though what Sennori was, whether mountain, forest,
gorge, or town, I had not the remotest idea. But had it been the
278 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
great Panjandrum himself, I should have gone with equal delight, so
vivified were my spirits by the great flood of sunshine, bathing field,
forest, and building in one impartial radiance.
We drove northward along a lofty road, with views of the distant
sea, dipping at intervals into rich valleys, where the palms shimmered
in the breeze and the red roses were a foil to the golden oranges.
Now we would plunge into the shade of a grove of olives, whose
leaves, still glistening with moisture, showered down a rain of tepid,
silvery tears as we passed. White houses shone in an embowerment
of verdure, and damp masses hung like velvet from the old walls of
an occasional ruin. From the valley we climbed gradually to the
sloping side of a lofty hill, and suddenly saw, far to the northward,
an entrancing vision of the snowy peaks of Corsica, which seemed to
float like clouds in the blue. We tried to distinguish the different
mountains, but with indifferent success, so altered did the outlines
appear from those we had learned to know in Corsica. So we
contented ourselves with sheer enjoyment of the beauty of the
prospect, many a pure delight being marred by man's crude instinct
for classification and analysis.
From this distance, the island appeared a jewel of opal and
mother-of-pearl set in a sea of amethyst ; so why have reduced it to
matter-of-fact rock, earth, and water ?
As we admired, the sound of a bell broke on our ears, and turning
a corner, we came suddenly upon Sennori, an ideal village, rising in
tiers among the trees, to culminate in a picturesque spire.
Leaving the carriage at the entrance to the village, we climbed
the steep, deserted streets to the church, where every one was now
hearing mass. The men stood in groups before the door, most of
them wearing the ancient, national dress, which harmonised so well
with their characteristic faces. They politely made way for us as we
entered the building, which was crowded, chiefly with women, who, in
spite of their gay costumes, knelt bravely on the bare stone flags of
the floor.
When service was over, the widows were the first to come out,
with their immense pleated skirts turned up over their head, the
In Gala Costume,
THE WOMEN OE SENNORI.
281
Head-dress of Sennori Women.
sombreness of their striking dress enhancing the pallor of their
faces. Behind the widows came a joyous bevy of young women
2 82 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
and maidens, who quite brightened the old stone steps leading down
to the platform on which the church was built. The mingled white,
red, and blue of their dresses, their golden corsets, their chased
necklaces and studs, the white linen head-dress, not unlike the hoods
of sisters of charity, and their demure faces, wreathed in little smiles
of surprise at the appearance of strangers, composed a pleasing
picture of youth and colour, which vanished all too soon, like the
memory of a time that has been arid is not.
I was made welcome at the house of a friend, and was struck by
the simplicity and bareness of the village-interiors, which, both at
Sennori and elsewhere, are strangely disproportionate to the richness
of the dresses.
Dress, it appears, is one of the chief pre-occupations of the
Sardinian girls. Immediately after their first Communion, they set
about preparing their wedding dresses, which are so elaborate that
they occupy several years in the making. If a girl dies, she is buried
in the dress which she has got ready for her marifiage.
At Sennori, this dress consists of a short vest of crimson velvet,
with sleeves slashed in the mediaeval fashion, so as to display the
white chemise underneath. These sleeves are ornamented at the
wrist by a row of gold or silver filigree buttons, only one of
which is fastened. The open bosom of the vest displays a gold-
embroidered corset, laced in front with red. The skirt is made
of coarse black cloth, woven in the country and pleated by the
women themselves. At the bottom of the skirt there is a broad
band of white silk embroidered with flowers of various colours.
The apron is of blue silk with a black fringe. The head-dress is
a sort of wimple of fine linen, not unlike the style common in
France under Charles VI.
On ordinary occasions the velvet vest is replaced by a brown vest,
the slashed sleeves of which are made of two large bands, one red
and the other blue. During the week, the women often veil the lower
part of the face with a silk handkerchief, reminding one of a Turkish
yashmak, but worn in order to protect the mouth and prevent the
inhalation of the miasma from the marshes. Bare feet are the rule ;
Basket-making.
PRINCESSES OF ALL WORK. 285
but when shoes are worn', they are elegant little slippers, and not
fashionable Parisian monstrosities.
Having seen the women of Sennori on a Sunday, I wondered
what these finely attired princesses did on a week-day, and took
advantage of the next fine day to gratify my curiosity.
I saw again the tortuous streets, the old houses and the poor
•church, and in the streets my princesses, mostly barefoot, but still
dressed in the same bright colours. Some were sitting in the
sunlight before the doors weaving large flat baskets of reeds, which
is a habitual occupation of the women of the country, while others
were working alone in whitewashed rooms, dimly lighted by a grated
window. Occasionally, several wove their reeds together, in bare
spacious rooms, where half-naked children basked or crawled on the
sun-warmed floor. My proud princesses and grave maidens of the
previous Sunday were transformed into industrious toilers, laughing
and chattering, and occasionally singing some ancient stave, such
as —
" Convei'tidas sunt in iras "Changed to rage
Sas amorosas fiafnmas^' etc. Is the flame of his love," etc.
Everywhere at Sennori I received a cordial welcome ; but this
was nothing surprising, for the Sardinian is very hospitable. " Sa
domo est ininore^ su core est mamt " (" His house is small, but his heart
is big "), as the Sardinian proverb hath it.
A foreign engineer, weary with a long ride through mountains
and forests, and weak from hunger, once stopped at the first house
Tie came to, and asked to buy some bread. " We don't sell bread,"
was the only reply. Further on, he applied at another house, and
received the self-same answer. The coincidence made him reflect.
^' Well ! " said he, " if you don't sell bread, perhaps you will give me
some ? I'm hungry." Whereupon he was made eagerly welcome,
and given ample to satisfy his appetite.
Seeing a good-looking girl in one of the houses, 1 begged her to
sit for her portrait. She obstinately refused at first, notwithstanding
the wish of her mother, but suddenly changing her mind, sullenly
286
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
crossed her arms and
sat in front of the
door, saying, " There !
take my portrait, if
it pleases you so
much."
When 1 had
finished, she had not
even the curiosity to
look at my sketch,
and re-entered the
house. I followed her
and offered her some
money to recom-
pense her for her
trouble, but she
blushed and shrugged
her shoulders, without
even deigning to re-
fuse my present.
At the lower end.
of the village, in a
valley threaded by a
little stream, I found
an orange orchard.
The fruit was just
ripening, and the in-
tense green of the
, foliage was starred
with innumerable
golden spheres.
"What is the
"" meaning of those
horns fastened to the branches ? " I asked of a Sardinian who was.
passing.
On the Threshold.
AT EVENTIDE. 287
"It is to ward off evil influences, which would render the trees
sterile, that we hang rams' horns to the branches, as you see ! "
The shadows slowly lengthened, the lights in the woodland died
away, and soon only the lofty church of Sennori showed a trembling
ray suspended from the vault of heaven above the obscure village,.
like the light of a sanctuary lamp. Even this was presently obscured
by the twilight, and night fell. As I drove back to Sassari along the
dark, silent road, looking over the sea, which reflected the pale
radiance of a waning moon, I seemed to hear an interior voice
murmuring the fragment of Sardinian poetry —
" Co?ive?'tidas su?it i?t iras
Sas a??iorosas fiammas. . . ."
Not only passionate love, but everything else changes. The-
smiles of to-day are succeeded by the tears of to-morrow, and even
while the sun gleams on the foliage, clouds are massing in the
offine.
Among the Limbara Mountains.
CHAPTER 11.
Sorso. — A Classical Picture. — Fevers. — An Allegory on the Road. — Osilo. — The
Manor of Malespina. — A Sardinian Vendetta. — The Tragic Story of Giovanni.
NOVPLMBER, chill and dark in Northern Europe, is wayward
and morose in Sardinia, where torrential rains and sudden
gales alternate with days of calm and spring-like airs.
On such a day of sunlight, succeeding a night of storm, I took
leave of the excellent Albergo Azuni, where I had stayed at Sassari,
and started for Sorso.
After a long spell of bad weather, nature was smiling like a
convalescent child. The azure of the sky was of singular trans-
lucency, and the few fleecy clouds, slowly floating north-eastward,
seemed immeasurably detached from the deep, receding sky. A faint
mist shimmered over the lowlands, but the air on the heights was
pure and bright, and laden with the suavity of a thousand aromatic
plants.
In fine weather, the neighbourhood of Sassari, with its valleys
.shaded by orange groves, and the white or pink country houses
shining like azalea blossoms in the tawny woods, seems to merit the
name bestowed on the northern portion of Sardinia — the logudoro
or country of gold.
Sorso is the next village to Sennori, but the inhabitants appear
of a different race. Here, the women affect white or pink for their
288
THE PEOPLE OF SORSO.
289
dress, and their faces are often partially veiled like those of the
Moorish women in North Africa. They glide noiselessly through
the streets in their strange costume, which is absolutely devoid of
ornament, but, from its simplicity, both of form and colour, has the
u^'^ y
Old Man of Sorso.
quality of giving the women an appearance of stature and grace,
often more than their own.
The men have a wild aspect, very like that of the Corsican
mountaineers ; nor is this surprising when we know that the north
coast of Sardinia was for long a place of refuge for the oppressed
19
290 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
people of the sister isle. Certain villages of the Gallura, the northern-
most province, are peopled by the descendants of bandits from the
other side of the Straits of Bonifacio.
I saw two typical old men seated on a stone bench outside a
house — sombre, cowled veterans, etched in mezzotint against the
white wall. One of them was pleased to sit to me for his portrait,
and proved one of the best fellows in the world, having nothing in
common with a malefactor except his aspect ; but all the same, I
should not have relished meeting such a figure at nightfall at the
corner of a wood.
At Sorso, as elsewhere, I was treated with wide hospitality, and
my friend, Signor Catta, a member of the district council, even
introduced me to his wife, which, following southern and eastern
precedent, is not the custom of the country. Owing to this lack of
introduction, it sometimes befalls a stranger to mistake the mistress
of the house for one of the servants, and vice versa. My Sorso hostess
was too distinguished-looking, however, for -such an error to be
possible, and we conversed cordially and with passable comprehension,
in Catalan, the dialect most resembling Sardinian.
The public fountain, which Sorso owes to the Spaniards, is a
white stone erection, pleasantly embowered in dense foliage, situated
at the lower end of a steeply sloping avenue, terminating in a flight
of broad steps. To see the women drawing water, or waiting by
this fountain with their amphora poised on their heads, is to see a
classic picture, such as might come from the brush of Mr. Poynter.
Their long, severe garments with flowing folds, and the pure harmony
between the pure colour and texture of the fabric and the white
stone fountain and green foliage, make up a composition quite
Hellenic in its effective simplicity.
At the end of the avenue opposite to the fountain rises the
cathedral, a pseudo-Moorish building, the cupolas of which soar
above the trees like a lofty mosque.
Beyond the village are the ruins of the manor-house of the Mores
family, progenitors of the Dukes of Asinara and Vallombrosa. The
house was sacked by the Sardinian peasants in 1793. In the door-
THE PROCESSION OE LIFE. 29 1
way of a house opposite this sombre relic of departed grandeur, I
saw a young woman wearing a sort of turban, and with her breast
covered with ornaments. She resembled the Jewesses one meets
in the Kasbah of Algiers, and her dress harmonised with her Oriental
type of face. But the face was pitiable to see, it was so ravaged and
wasted by fever. Sorso is especially malarious on account of the
exhalations from the stagno di Platamona, between the village and
the sea. Fever not only strikes adults, but even children, and it is
painful to observe the poor little things, lying pallid and moaning in
the arms of their mothers.
The sun grew slightly obscured as the day wore on, and the light
became of a strange, lurid, orange hue, which made distant objects
gleam like fused metal. In the shadow of the woods, women
were gathering olives, — vague figures in half-tint, like those in an
impression by Corot. Men were returning from work, their tools,
and often a bundle of faggots besides, on their shoulders.
" Bona sera ! " said each one in passing ; and looking seaward, we
saw, against the bank of clouds, into which the sun had fallen, the
signal of night blinking from the lighthouse of Porto Torres.
South-west of Sorso, and nearly equidistant from that town and
Sassari, is Osilo, one of the most important country towns in
Sardinia, with a population exceeding five thousand. Built on a
lofty hill, it is free from malaria, but is exposed both to the great
heats of summer and the rain-storms of winter.
The way through the olive woods on the road from Sassari to
Osilo is made interesting by many quaint encounters, forming
almost a mediaeval allegory of life.
Now passes a priest on horseback, his breviary in hand, his gun
across his saddle-bow, his housekeeper riding pillion behind him —
now a cluster of dark, cowled horsemen, riding like the wind and
disappearing in a cloud of dust.
Hither, more leisurely, come two lovers on the same mount,
conversing in whispers scarce distinguishable from the rustling of the
leaves, which brush their heads as they pass. Her arms are tightly
locked round him, with the excuse of thus maintaining a firmer scat.
292 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
Her head is bent forward so that her lips are at his ear ; he half
looks over his shoulder to answer. The neglected nag which bears
them, ambles leisurely along at his own sweet will — sweeter to him
than all the lovers' whispers — and, not infrequently, stops to crop the
grass in a shady spot by the road, where the man and girl are hidden
for a moment behind the friendly foliage-screen.
So they pass, and with them the woods and greenery of the
foothills. The heat grows more intense, and the road reaches a
volcanic tableland, where a large solitary pine dominates the naked
landscape.
Over against us, frowned upon by the dark turrets of a ruined
castle, Osilo glitters in the sun on the summit of a wild, bare
mountain, the slopes of which appear to have cracked into fissures
from the heat.
The road before ascending, dips down to the pastures where the
herds stand silent and panting in the noonday. Round and about
are hills of crenellated rock, like fortresses, divided by shallow valleys
of brown woodland. The track skirts an arid ravine, the rocky walls
of which are honeycombed with prehistoric cave dwellings.
The isolated house at the foot of Mount Osilo is a cantoniera^ a
primitive inn or refuge, where belated travellers may pass the night
on the bare floor, — poor accommodation enough, but often not to be
despised in the mountain solitudes of Sardinia.
As we ascended the mountain, the air freshened, but the whole
landscape glared with heat. Suddenly, near the summit, the sterile
ground appeared to have given birth to beds of brilliant flowers.
The arid volcanic slope was flecked with groups of laughing girls,
whose red petticoats, white linen head-dresses, and gold-embroidered
corsets glittered in the sun. They were the washerwomen of Osilo,
making the most of the rivulets filtering through the depressions in
the soil or carefully husbanded in shallow, artificial basins. After
weeks of rain and storm, these women were takingr advantas^e of the
fine day to get through their work while the supply of water lasted.
Leaving the laughing company behind, I plunged into a labyrinth
of narrow streets, and asked my way to the castle. Two men
AT THE RUINS OF MALESPINA. 295
offered to guide me to the ruins, which are some two thousand feet
above sea-level, and command a splendid view of the surrounding
country.
On the very crest of the mountain rise two broken towers, built
of blocks of black basalt stained by orange-coloured lichen. The
walls of the courtyard are crumbling, and the wind whistles between
the disjointed stones. Far away to the northward, beyond the
streak of sea and the cliffs of Bonifacio, rise the mountains of
Corsica, snow-capped, rocky, and streaked with dark lines, which
are forests. At one's feet lies Sardinia, a rude contrast to the
splendour of the more distant isle ; for this region of Anglona is bare
and sad, and all the highlands of Gallura have that wildness of
aspect which suggests remoteness and even estrangement from
humanity.
My two Sardinian guides were sitting on their haunches on the
ground. The light of the setting sun gave a sort of ruddy varnish
to their rough, brown faces : the wind fluttered their unkempt
beards and tangled hair. The noises of Osilo rose with singular
distinctness in the evening stillness, but of the town itself only
the tiled roofs were visible, with here and there the dark furrow
of a narrow street. The sea-horizon faded into immensity of distance ;
a pale band of foreshore marked the winding, but bare and cliffless
coast-line of Sardinia ; the bare summits of the Limbara mountains
were purple ash-colour in the last of the light ; a few villages
gleamed here and there like foam flakes, and a haze of blue smoke
rising from the forest marked the site of Sassari.
The two ebon-hued towers protected me from the wind, and
by my side were my savage-looking guides.
The elder spoke.
" This manor-house," said he, " of which you see the keep calcined
by the sun, burned by the lightning, and flayed by the winds, was
the house of the Malespina. Later on, it belonged to Alfonso of
Aragon, and to the Doria family. After being several times besieged,"
the castle was at length carried by assault, and laid waste to such
good purpose that the place was forgotten, and stone by stone
296 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
its proud walls began to crumble away. At the beginning of this
century, the Serra and Fadda families of Osilo were at feud, and
one of them took refuge in this castle, and sustained a long siege,
in which even the women cut and thrust with the best of the
warriors, a terrible instance of the fury of the vendettas, which have
resulted in the shedding of so much Sardinian blood.
" When a family enters upon a vendetta, they begin by cutting
off the ears or tail, often both, of one or several of their enemy's
horses. This is the first warning — an injury cruelly resented, because
the horse is the animal best beloved of the Sardinians.
" The second w^arning is similar, and consists in ham-stringing the
enemy's cattle.
" For the third and last token, three shots are fired at one of the
windows of the house.
" War is then declared. Each murder, no matter who may be
cither victim or assailant, leads to terrible dramas, exceeding in
violence and horror even the most tragic of Cojsican vendettas. In
certain Sardinian villages, the relatives smear their faces with the
blood of the murdered man, and take oath never to wash their
faces or trim their beards, and to wear the same clothes and same
linen, until their vengeance is fulfilled.
" A vendetta which made a great noise in the country was that
of Giovanni Cano, a native of Ozieri, a village over yonder in the
mountains " — and my guide pointed to the east. " Giovanni was
studying at Sassari University when his father died. His mother
had already succumbed in giving birth to her only daughter, Adelita,
w^ho had henceforward to depend upon the support of her brother.
Giovanni, leaving the university, returned home to Ozieri, and was
busy arranging matters connected with his inheritance, when certain
disquieting rumours came to his ears regarding the nature of his
sister's relations with one of his friends, named Luigi, a young
Lombard doctor. Although ascribing these reports to malice,
Giovanni thought fit to warn his friend. ' I beg you to go away,'
said he, ' and do not injure Adelita's reputation.'
" Luigi left accordingly, but returned to Adelita every time her
Young Woman of Osilo.
A ROMANTIC VENDETTA. 299
brother was absent from Ozieri. One evening Giovanni returned
unexpectedly, and surprising the lovers together, only spared Luigi's
life on condition that he quitted the district. He himself then left,
and established himself with his sister in his grandfather's house,
at Oschiri. Some time later he went to Sassari on a visit, but,
before leaving, charged his head shepherd Antonio to watch well
over Adelita, and, above all, to see that she was not visited by the
young doctor. At Sassari, however, Giovanni fell ill, and when he
was recovering, Antonio sent him news that frequent visits had been
paid to the house during his absence by Luigi.
" Notwithstanding his weakness, he at once set off on horseback
for Oschiri, where he arrived the same night. Antonio met him on
the road, and they watched together till morning. At the first streak
of dawn, Luigi came out of the house. Giovanni rushed upon him,
but not wishing to kill his former friend, dragged him by the collar
to the brink of a precipice. 'There,' said Giovanni afterwards, * we
could fight man to man, till one of us fell into the abyss ; and Antonio
would act as second in our duel.'
" But the struggle was not over, when Luigi suddenly fired his
pistol and took to flight. He had not gone far, before two shots
followed in quick succession. The one from Giovanni's pistol missed ;
the other, from Antonio's gun, did not miss. Luigi fell dead, and
poor Adelita, who had been a spectator of the combat, rushed out
of the house, and threw herself on the body of her lover.
*' The sound of the firing was heard by two mounted carabineers,
who were passing near at the time, and they hurried to the scene.
On perceiving the dead body of Luigi, they covered Giovanni and
Antonio with their rifles, and called upon them, in the king's name,
to surrender. For reply Antonio fired, and wounded one of the men.
The other promptly retorted with a shot which stretched the shepherd
dead on the ground. Scarcely had he fallen before Giovanni had
avenged his death, and the carabineer, with a bullet in his heart,
fell back lifeless across the flanks of his horse, which, mad with terror,
bolted across country with its lifeless rider hanging inert over its
back. Adelita, bathed in her lover's blood, had fainted, and Giovanni,
300 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
seizing her in his arms, carried her into the house, and, mounting
a horse, fled to the forests of the Limbara, an outcast and a marked
man. After a period of miserable wandering in the wilds, he was
seized with home-hunger, and was anxious to learn how fared his
sister, whom he still loved. One evening found him at twilight near
Oschiri. An old man whom he did not know was creeping along
the road. To this man he addressed himself, and, with feigned
indifference, spoke of Giovanni. The old man sighed.
" ' See,' said he, ' that is his house yonder ; but there is no light,
because no one lives there now. Giovanni has a great and noble
heart, yet he has been sentenced to death, and his sister died of
grief a few days ago.'
" Having thus spoken, the old man slowly wended his way to
the village. But Giovanni, fired by despair, remounted his horse,
rode like a maniac across the fields and plains, and coming to the
brink of a precipice, leaped over into the chasm. Some shepherds
who saw him pass, his face of an ashen paHor, his hair streaming
in the wind, his spurs dug rowel-deep in the sides of his affrighted
steed, took him for a phantom.
" Wonderful to relate, however, he escaped with his life, and
only his horse was dashed to pieces. The bandit Gian Domenico
Porqueddu, happening to pass the spot, found Giovanni lying sense-
less at the bottom of the precipice, and, after bandaging his wounds,
brought him to a cave, where he nursed him back to health.
"Gian, who had been a bandit for twenty-five years, became
very much attached to the young man, with whose misfortunes he
was well acquainted. He was moreover always ready to befriend
outcasts like himself, who led a wandering life in Gallura, Anglona,
and on the mountains of Acuto.
"In Sardinia, however, as in Corsica, the clergy with the aid of
the civil and military authorities sometimes succeed in concluding-
peace between the hostile families, who otherwise would be at feud
till the end of the world. Giovanni, worn out by the rude life of
a bandit in the forest solitudes, and weary of hunger, exposure, and
the constant necessity of being on the alert, was one of those who
THE SAD STORY OF GIOVANNI. 3OI
signed the peace compact of Tempio, concluded by the intervention
of Bishop Varesini. But his misfortunes were not over. Armed
with the safe conduct given to every man who came to give evidence,
he found himself one day seated at the same table as the carabineer,
who had been wounded by Antonio in the brisk combat in which
he, Giovanni, had killed the carabineer's comrade.
" On seeing the murderer of his mate, the carabineer felt hate
in his heart. He swore to be revenged, and tracked his man with
such remorseless assiduity that Giovanni had once more to fly and
seek shelter in the mountains of Limbara. But, coming one day
to Macomer to sell some game, the carabineer, who was lying in
wait, fired on him. The shot missed its aim, but Giovanni, driven
to desperation, fired in his turn, and with deadly effect.
" After this fresh murder, his life grew still harder and more
miserable. He worked in the mines of Sulcis, became a day labourer,
and even a shepherd, without ever finding rest.
*' Always in danger of pursuit, he crossed the island to the district
of Nurra, furnished with letters of recommendation to a family named
Marras, who lived at a farm known as la Poneda. Nearly dead of
fatigue, he stopped to rest late one evening on the margin of a
spring, at the same moment that a young girl of marvellous beauty
came there to draw water. As fearless and kindly as she was lovely,
the girl chatted pleasantly with the wild-looking man, and proved
to be none other than the daughter of Signor Marras, the master
of la Poneda. She led Giovanni to her father, and, in a very short
time, the outcast found that he had fallen in love, with all the
fierceness of his proud, tempestuous nature. But even in this,
he was crossed by his cruel destiny. Mimmia, for that was the
girl's name, was already betrothed, and the wedding day was even
already at hand. Giovanni, maddened by this fresh disappointment,
took again to his wandering life, dragging heavy, careless feet along
the sorrowful way which his life seemed fated to follow. He defied
Destiny to wound him again, and Destiny, taking up the gage,
wounded him still more cruelly; for Mimmia was suddenly attacked
by cholera, and died in a few hours, in the heyday of her youth and
302 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
beauty. That was the last blow. Giovanni returned to Oschiri to
pray and weep at the grave of his sister Adelita, and it was there
that, covered with the mud of the cemetery, his face bathed in tears,
his feet torn by the thorns of the forest, he was arrested one evening-
by the carabineers. He made no resistance and, being sentenced
to death, met his end with serenity and even with joy."
The old guide rose from his seat, and I saw that while 1 had
been absorbed in listening to his story night had fallen. I followed
him down the narrow pathway and returned to the inn, if I can
give such a hospitable name to the dirty lodging, in which a miserable
repast awaited me under the name of dinner.
Next morning I wandered through the town, where every street
echoed the noise of primitive trades.
Osilo is renowned for its cloth, called orbace, which is woven
at home by the women. As in Chaucer's day, "the spinsters and
the knitters in the sun did use to chaunt," so here the matrons were
sitting in front of their doors, spinning or winding the wool, or
making dye in large copper cauldrons, filled with madder, gathered
in the vicinity of the town.
The men were mostly at work in the fields or woods, but the
old people sat basking in the sun along the walls.
The people of Osilo have scarcely changed their manner of
existence for centuries. They continue to live on the flesh and
milk of their goats and sheep, whose hair and wool are woven by
the women. They grow corn, and grind it into flour in primitive
querns according to their requirements. They make wine from their
own grapes and oil from their own olives. They have no industry,
no commerce, and no ambition. But the tranquillity of their lives
is reflected in the serenity of their faces, and, having no wants
which nature does not satisfy, their lot is perhaps more enviable
than that of many a more civilised community.
The City of Alghero.
CHAPTER III,
The Spanish City of Alghero. — The " Snail's Staircase." — Tempio and the Limbara
Mountains. — Torralba and the Nuraghi. — Across Sardinia. — Oristano. — The
City of Tharros. — A Sardinian Judith. — Caghari. — The Pertinacious Porters.
IN Corsica I had found a Genoese city and a Greek village, and
in the Balearic group, Iviza, an island peopled by Arabs. I was
now to visit in Sardinia a Spanish, or more correctly a Catalan,
town. The Mediterranean islands are full of such ethnographical
surprises, but nowhere have the distinguishing characteristics of a
people been so preserved, in spite of an alien soil and the lapse
of centuries, as they have been at Alghero, the Spanish town of
Sardinia.
i\lghero is on the coast, twenty-one miles south-west of Sassari,
with which it is connected by a narrow-gauge raihvay. The line at
first followed the course of a valley, dotted with ruined nuragJii, but
soon entered a sterile region, where the stony soil was only broken
by stunted arbutus and lentisk trees, interspersed with dwarf-palms.
Here and there pools of stagnant water reflected a cloudy sky, and,
on the left, a sad-looking village straggled up a bony-looking hill.
It was Olmcdo ; and a nun, who was in the same carriage as I, covered
303
304 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
her rubicund face with her white veil and shivered at the sight,
whispering to me that there were many bad characters at Olmedo.
They had murdered their parish priest, and, generally speaking,
preferred knives to any other form of argument.
Two carabineers alighted at the station, and the good sister
observed, " See, there must be another murder. The police know
the way to Olmedo only too well ! "
Leaving the ill-reputed place behind, we steamed on towards the
sea, and, as we approached Alghero, I could almost fancy myself
back in Spain. Here were the same picturesque little houses, with
the plumes of the palm tree peering up above the white walls, the
same reed huts, the Spanish wheels for raising water, the verandahs,
fields, and gardens of the Peninsula. But the country was evidently
poverty-stricken, and the misery, which is general throughout Sardinia,
was even more pronounced here than elsewhere.
Nevertheless, the appearance of Alghero is captivating. Charles V.,
who landed here on his way to Africa in J 541, is said to have
exclaimed on beholding the town, " Bonita.per mafe.y bien asestada I "
(" Charming, by my faith, and well situated ! ").
The epithets were well deserved, and time passed very pleasantly
in exploring the town, with its queer little harbour, its cathedral
built by the Genoese family Doria who founded the city, and its
theatre, built with the revenues of the canons who abound in the
town, and may often be seen, so it is said, witnessing the performance
of La 'Traviata, with penitent faces.
The window of the room in the CasaAlbis, occupied by Charles V.
during his visit, is walled up, so that it may not be profaned by any
lesser mortal, and the palace, for many centuries, had rights of
sanctuary.
Walking through the streets, I seemed to have left Sardinia and
to have returned to Catalonia. Here were the same faces, the same
houses, the same dialect, the same accent. I met the same manolaSy
with their jet black hair and dainty ringlets on their foreheads, a
bunch of red carnations fastened to their breast, and eyes that shot
" love's arrows at every glance " ; and, with the girls, the same toothless
i^^nyf
Ancient Aragonese Tower.
20
IN A SPANISH CITY. 307
old duennas as I had seen at Barcelona or Cadiz. The men who
passed had the proverbially haughty air of the Spanish caballero,
and rested one hand on their hip, as if ready to grasp the pommel
of the sword, to exact swift indemnity for real or fancied insult.
I spoke to these people in their own language, Catalan, and I
was understood by, and myself understood, every one.
The children gathered round me, and followed me about every-
where. They were as talkative, and, let me add, as noisy and
impudent, as in Catalonia. Some of them were gnawing the root
or bulb of the dwarf-palm, in which they seemed to take an epicurean
enjoyment.
These roots, which are called inargaillons, are much prized as
articles of food, both at Alghero and at Sorso, and I had seen them
exposed for sale in the market at the latter place. The bulb of the
dwarf-palm attains a size in these regions unknown even in Africa.
It is said that the Moors set great store by its nourishing qualities,
and first introduced the Sardinians to its use.
In order to get rid of the children, I made the tour of the city
by the circular road, and at length found myself alone on the rocky
coast. The sky was aglow with the dying day, and the waves
moaned as they broke in foam on the fringe of reefs. The quaint
outline of the old Spanish town, with its frowning ramparts, belfries
and domes, the bastions of its citadel, and white houses, loomed
dimly through the pale twilight. But the rhythmic beat of the
waves and the flutter of some passing sea-bird's wing were the only
sounds. The town grew yet darker, till the buildings became merged
into one confused black mass, with only the sharp-pointed belfries
standing out distinctly against a sky-belt of crimson, striated with
the violet coils of smoke rising from the chimneys. The clamour
of the sea appeared to grow in volume as the light waned, and human
cries seemed to mingle with the heavy thudding of the surf, the
voices perchance of the victims put to the sword by Don Pietro II.,
// Ceremonioso, as he was called, though in truth he showed little of
the quality which earned the epithet, when he captured Alghero from
the Genoese and spared neither man, woman, nor child.
308 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
Of that massacre not one survived, and the city was repopulated
by Spaniards brought from Catalonia, who wakened the sounds of the
guitar and danced the joyous fandango on the very soil saturated
with so much Italian blood.
The Spanish colony thus planted in the island was naturally at
constant war with the Sardinians, and on the festival day of the town,
it was customary to celebrate the memory of a great victory gained
over a Sardinian lieutenant of the Viscount of Narbonne, by burning
a straw mannikin dressed in Sardinian uniform, to the singing of
scurrilous verses abusing the enemy. For a long time, Sassari and
Alghero were at open war, and even now it cannot be said that the
traditional hatred is extinguished.
Alghero is noted for the caverns, known as the Grottoes of
Neptune, at the foot of a lofty cliff, some distance from the town ;
but to visit these requires exceptionally favourable conditions, and
many visitors have made the attempt in vain. The entrance is very
low, the top of the arch being little above the- level of the water, and
if the sea rises while the visitor is inside, it is dangerous and some-
times fatal to attempt to escape. To explore the grottoes at all
involves a regular expedition, with a supply of food and candles, and
a flat-bottomed boat with which to cross the pools inside the cavern.
The caves still contain some fine stalactites, notwithstanding the
vandalism of the captain of a Sardinian frigate, who blew down the
natural columns in the outer cave with cannon, in order to decorate
his villa at Nice. A similar charge of philistinism is brought against
a captain in the British Navy.
The branch railway to Alghero joins the main line at Caniga, the
next station to Sassari ; but the road from the latter is more direct,
and introduces the traveller to the picturesque Scala di Gioccay
meaning in Sardinian, the " Snail's Staircase," Emerging from the
shadows of the thick forest around Sassari, one comes suddenly and
without any transition to the verge of a deep gorge, at the bottom
of which a foaming stream turns the wheel of a primitive mill, and
disappears in a grove of willows. The road winds capriciously down
to the lowest point, and reascends the opposite cliff. The traveller
OSSI AND OSILO.
;o9
would willingly linger by the stream among the weeping willows, but
he is scared away from the quiet spot by the warning presence of the
eucalyptus ; for wherever this tree flourishes fevers flourish also, and
from the beginning of summer to the end of autumn, he who lingered
in such a spot would be promptly punished for his temerity.
The gorge has been the scene of many bandit adventures, and
I'he Valley of Ossi.
particularly of the exploits of a certain brigand of Osilo, a man of
excellent reputation and perfect honesty, so say the Sardinians, but
outlawed for having deliberately stabbed a priest who had com-
promised his wife. He was sentenced to the galleys and transported
to Genoa, but succeeded in escaping, and returned to Sardinia, where
his arrival was soon made known throughout the district of Osilo by
the murder of at least twenty persons^ all of them witnesses who had
given evidence against him at his trial. His reputation increased
with the terror which he inspired. From very fear, the peasants acted
3IO THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
as his spies ; and for over twenty years he succeeded in evading
justice, though frequently visiting Sassari, and being met with at
church and J even at the theatre. Ultimately he was betrayed by a
woman whom he loved, and sold his life dearly, fighting to the last.
Beyond the Scala di Giccca the road crosses a rocky wilderness,
from which it rapidly descends to the charming valley, from the
bottom of which the light, graceful spire of Ossi points to the sky.
Ossi is a village of considerable size, and here, as at Osilo,
the gorgeously dressed women may be seen seated before their
doorways, weaving the cloth which, with that made in the neigh-
bouring village of Tissi, is considered the finest in Sardinia. Both
villages are near the main railway line from Sassari to Chilivani, the
junction for Tempio and the north.
The scenery from the railway is, however, not cheering. I left
Sassari early one morning, just as a pale dawn was breaking in a low,
cloudy sky. Everything green was shining wet, and the soil was
soaked. In the cold light of daybreak the country appeared livid.
The waters of the swollen streams glided along noiselessly like oil.
Gradually ascending from the valleys, we came to volcanic slopes,
where churches built of black lava brooded over equally sombre
villages. Finally we reached the great tableland of the interior, a
country of wide, sweeping lines, and vast, sad horizons, bounded
only by the grave, hazy masses of the distant mountains. The sole
living objects breaking the monotony of this treeless and uncultivated
plain were the herds, which grazed at immense distances from each
other, under the care of grim-looking shepherds, wearing the ancient
niastrucca.
The train stopped at the village of Ploaghc, built at the foot of
an extinct volcanic crater. The costume of the contadine (peasants)
of this village is of great picturesqueness, especially the head-dress,
which is a blue woollen square, embroidered behind with a large
yellow cross.
The next halt of importance was at Chilivani, where I changed
trains for Tempio, and as I had an hour to wait, visited the
refreshment room, the only one on the line. The bill of fare did
TEMPIO.
II
not offer much choice, however, comprising merely the two dishes
minestra (vermicelli soup) and arrosto di vitello (roast veal), which
are as invariable in Sardinia as
corned beef and boiled mutton
used to be on a certain line of
Highland steamers. Chilivani
railway station is notorious as
the scene of one of the midnight
assassinations not uncommon in
Sardinia, of which more anon.
After a weari-
some journey across
uninteresting country,
I reached Tempio at
nightfall.
Tempio is the
most populous town
in Gallura. Its lofty
houses, built of
regular blocks of
granite, mortared with
clay, would resemble
fortresses, except for
the immense wooden
balconies projecting
from each storey, and
casting queerly fore-
shortened shadows on
the pavement below.
The women spend
far more of the day
working and gossip- Contadina of Ploaghe.
ing on these balconies than they do in their rooms, so that the
otherwise solemn street is kept perpetually merry with the chatter
of female voices.
312 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
The roads are paved with large flagstones, on which the horses'
hoofs make a hollow clatter, as if there were dungeons beneath.
The men who pass are invariably clad in black, and generally wear
hoods, giving them a sad, monastic aspect, agreeably relieved by
the young girls who, here as elsewhere, pass and repass with their
amphora on their heads. Altogether, however, the prevailing
sentiment at Tempio is one of melancholy, notwithstanding the
beauty of the sky, which is almost always clear.
Not far from the city rises the granite chain of the Limbara
mountains, the highest peak of which, the Giugantinu, has an
altitude of 5,906 feet. It is a rocky mass of characteristic appearance.
The side opposite Tempio faces northwards, and only gets the sun
at its setting ; hence the climate is comparatively cold. The town
itself is nearly 2,000 feet above sea-level, and the air is healthy
and bracing. The vicinity is dotted with shepherds' huts {stazzi\
built of rough stones below, while the upper part of the walls is
constructed of wattles. Several hundred families dwell here,
banded together in a sort of federation called cussorgie, living a
primitive, pastoral life, varied only by occasional hunting expeditions.
Except for the sight of the changing lights and shadows on
the mountains, there is not much to detain the traveller at Tempio ;
and, on the second day after my arrival, I again entered the toy-train,
w^hich runs up the mountain railway from Monti, and by noon found
myself back at Chilivani, whence I continued my journey southwards
towards Cagliari.
On either side the view embraced only the same stony mountains
and arid defiles. Thirteen miles beyond Chilivani we passed
Torralba, a village infinitely sad of aspect, built of black or red
volcanic stone, with an ancient church, formerly episcopal, containing
mediaeval sculptures. Torralba is in the heart of the country of the
nuraghi, those mysterious cyclopean monuments peculiar to Sardinia,
the origin of which is such a riddle to archaeologists.
The interior of these constructions, which are in the form of
a truncated cone, is divided into two, and, in rare instances, three
chambers superposed. The lower room is the loftier, and is often
THE NURAGHI.
3^3
sixteen feet across by twenty-two feet in height. Entrance is
obtained by a doorway, so low that it is necessary to He flat on
the ground in order to creep through. A spiral staircase, constructed
in the thickness of the walls, and entered from the narrow passage
between the outer door and the lowermost chamber, gives access
to the upper room and the platform above, though this in most
Nuraghe of Torralba.
instances is now destroyed. In each chamber are two or three niches,
each capable of holding a man standing erect ; and, at the entrance,
which can be closed from inside by a large rock, there is an excavation
in the passage, which served, no doubt, as a refuge for the man guard-
ing the building from attack. The interior is quite dark, and visitors
require to carry candles. The nuraghi generally occur in groups,
varying in number from three or four to two hundred. The most
314 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
general number is three or five, contained in a double or sometimes
triple circle of walls. But whether found singly or in groups, the
monuments are always disposed on strategic lines, which enabled them
to communicate with each other by signals. They are built generally
on eminences, and almost invariably in rocky soil, far from land
suitable for agriculture. Near the nuraghi are found the so-called
Giants' Graves {Tumbas de los Gigantes), oblong piles of stones,
often over thirty feet in length. The height of the nuraghi varies
from thirty to sixty feet, and their diameter from thirty-five to
one hundred.
The two nuraghi at Torralba, those of Sant' Antino and Oes, are
two of the best preserved in the island. In some places the
prehistoric dwellings serve as human habitations, and one sees at
the door wild faces, which seem to suit the rough lodgment that
shelters them.
Seven miles beyond Torralba, the railway turns eastward to
Bornova and curves round the sides of an extinct volcano. The
ground is as discoloured and stained as if it were the site of a
chemical laboratory. Here black as coal, there apparently covered
with verdigris, elsewhere as if blood-stained, it has a wild, not to
.say tragic aspect, with which the walls, built of a singular pale
green stone, seem curiously out of keeping.
This passed, the empire of stone resumes its sway. There is
one brief, cultivated valley, and then again under a low, grey sky,
the immense tableland of rock and volcanic debris, where a few
twisted and stunted oaks rattle their branches on the margin of
stagnant ponds and marshes, of the same leaden hue as the clouds.
A few cows with velvety hides graze here and there ; in the
distance, the mountains stretch in long undulating lines ; in the
foreground, a stream glides noiselessly between bare, treeless, and
even flowerless banks. Far away, the snowy peak of the Gennargentu
dominates the immensity of land and sky.
At the southern extremity of the plateau is the small town of
Macomer, built on basaltic rocks on the slope of the mountains of the
Catena del Marghine, at a height of 1,890 feet above the sea. It is
A DESOLATE LAND. 315
an antiquated-looking town, with low houses built of lava debris, and
in such a rocky, bare situation that scarce a tree can find space to
grow. The landscape is the perfection of desolation, and the eye
roams over desert tablelands and bare plains, dotted with ruined
nuraghi and giants' tombs, from the midst of which rise the arid
mount Santo Padre and the melancholy Lussurghi, while the horizon
is bounded by the lofty chain in which the giant of Sardinia, the
Gennargentu, towers heavenward, its majestic front often silvered
with snow, and nearly always crowned with clouds. The winds
whistle over Macomer at all seasons of the year, and in spring the
dreaded mistral blows for weeks together. When the spring storms
are spent, the sun beats upon the sterile rocks ; and the heated
marshes, ponds, and streams of the plain exhale poisonous malaria,,
while in autumn the town is whipped with icy rains or blotted out
by fogs. " Our climate is not unhealthy," say the people, " but care
must be taken to avoid catching cold."
Nevertheless, deaths from pneumonia and rheumatic fever are
common, due to the effect of the rapid changes of temperature upon
constitutions already weakened by miasmatic poison.
The train creeps on across the desolate country. The plain is
flecked with innumerable pools, on the margin of which grow a" few,
rickety cochineal plants or faded asphodels. Everywhere are the same
ruined nuraghi, half buried in rank grass, and the same miserable
volcanic villages surmounted by the cupola of the church. Far off,
near the peak of Lussurghi, which stands out against a pale glow of
saffron, as if a new, unexpected dawn were about to brighten the grey
day, the sky is streaked with long slanting lines, marking where a
shower is passing before or behind us.
At Abbasanta, fifteen miles from Macomer, some men were
taking leave of each other at the station, and, as the custom is in
Sardinia, kissed each other on the lips. A handsome church some-
what brightens the scene here, but half a mile further the line passes
close by two nuraghi. One is of black lava encrusted with orange
lichen ; the other is in ruins. Obscene-looking crows circle slowly
over the fallen stones.
31 6 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
This part of Sardinia has always a funereal appearance, whether
crossed in sunlight or on a grey day, by moonlight or by starlight.
The soil seems burnt, and is streaked with crude colours, purple, livid,
and black. Not a tree is visible, only sad horizons, restless birds of
prey, arid kopjies, and blood-red lava.
Yet the hills and basaltic rocks hide an oasis, where the village of
Milis nestles at the foot of Monte Ferru, in the midst of orange
gardens said to contain over 300,000 trees, some of which are seven
centuries old.
The best way to reach Milis is from Oristano, a town by the sea,
on the verge of the great plain which we have just crossed.
The most prominent figure in the history of Oristano, which is
full of stirring episodes, is a woman, the celebrated Eleanora
d'Arborea, whose statue adorns the piazza in front of the cathedral.
She was not only a military tactician and patriot, who subdued the
Aragonese, but also a great legislator, and her code of laws is quoted
to this day as a model of good sense and wisdom. One of its clauses
could only have been devised by a woman. Whoever took away the
character of a married woman was rendered liable to a fine of twenty-
five pounds ; but if the accused was unable to prove the truth of the
alleged slander, the fine was reduced to fifteen pounds. Thus subtly
was a woman's honour protected by an appeal to the self-interest of
her traducer, and perjury made a less heinous offence than truth-
telling. Civilisation may have advanced, but the human intellect
remains the same, and no modern legislation contains a more
ingenious clause than this Sardinian statute of the fourteenth century.
Nowadays, the old walls and strong fortress of Oristano are in
ruins, and the population does not exceed seven thousand. Desolate
marshes surround the town on all sides, and transform it practically
into a fever hospital. The doctors say that no stranger has ever
taken up his abode there and survived.
The suburbs, which consist of long monotonous streets of low
houses of poverty-stricken aspect, built of clay bricks dried in the
sun, are chiefly inhabited by potters. Oristano is the chief centre of
the Sardinian pottery industry, and manufactures an immense quantity
EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES. 317
of jars of elegant antique shape, Greek or Roman. The colour of the
ware is often superb, a special kind of varnish being used to secure a
brilliancy equalling that of bronze or burnished copper.
At some distance from Oristano is the ancient ruined city of
Tharros, the inhabitants of which worshipped the divinities of Egypt.
The origin and history of Tharros are mysterious, and the only
historian who makes mention of the place is Anthony of Tharros, a
prisoner in Palestine, who thus apostrophises the town of his birth : —
" O great misfortune ! Tharros, my poor native town ! Thou
art the third city which hath been repeatedly destroyed. O
most beautiful and wealthy city, founded by the famous Tarrha^
wife of Inova, who reigned over the Phoenician and Egyptian
peoples ! "
The town was destroyed by the Saracens in A.D. 1000. Immense
numbers of antiquities have been found on the site, including two
thousand scarabsei, mostly Egyptian, mounted in gold. These dis-
coveries caused great excitement in the country, and the earth was
dug and turned over by the people throughout the district, so that
every peasant's house became a perfect museum of antiquities, filled
with urns, glass and earthen vases, sepulchral lamps, plates, carved
figures, idols, amulets, scarabaei, and weapons of all kinds.
From Oristano southwards, the vegetation assumes an African
character. The black volcanic rocks and lava are left behind, and
in their stead are groves of olive trees with palms and cacti.
Towards Cagliari and Iglesias, and across the Cavipidano^ the
sky is barred with black clouds, and the sun gleams for an instant
on tawny-hued mountains, to be obscured the next moment by
a storm, which, nevertheless, does not last long. Various stations
are passed in the train, and as the rain ceases', we draw up at
Sanluri, a large village sleeping in the shadow of an old domed
church, and a massive fortress, where in 1345 a treaty of peace
was signed between the Aragonese and the delegates of Arborea.
The place is also the scene of a victory gained over the Spaniards
by the Princess Eleanora, and of the defeat after a bloody battle,
in 1409, of the Viscount of Narbonne, nephew of Eleanora, and
3l8 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
Brancaleone Doria, her husband, by a son of the Aragonese king
Don Martin of Sicily.
The annals of Sardinian patriotism record the self-sacrifice of
a singular Judith, the bella di Sa?tluri, who swore to compass the
death of the king, Don Martin. As she had a horror of bloodshed,
however, it was with the darts of Cupid that she sought to rid
the country of the oppressor, and she succeeded to such good pur-
pose, that Don Martin died in her arms.
In the environs of Sanluri, there is a large pond, now generally
dried up. In former days, the Procurator Fiscal used to compel
the peasants of neighbouring villages to drive down their horses
and cattle to break up the crust of salt deposited by evaporation
at the end of summer, so as to prevent the formation of a saline
deposit, by which the poor people might have profited, to the
prejudice of the salt monopoly.
After long stops at various stations, we saw the lights of Cagliari
gleaming through the dusk, and soon entered the station. As the
porters came out with the passengers* luggage, a perfect army of
loafers threw themselves on our trunks, and we literally were
compelled to resort to kicks and fisticuffs to defend ourselves and
our belongings. Choosing the least rowdy-looking of these ruffians,
I told him to take my things to the Ristorante della Scala di Ferro,
which had been recommended to me as the best hotel in the city.
There was no omnibus, and there were no carriages, not even
hand-barrows. The porter deftly rolled his handkerchief into a
sort of rope, fastened my bag to one end and my umbrella and
miscellaneous articles to the other, slung this over his left shoulder,
hoisted my box on his right, and trudged off along the wet, muddy
streets. Other men followed him, and under pretext of helping
him, rid him little by little of my bag, my umbrella, and box, leaving
him finally with only a parasol.
We climbed a number of steep, narrow streets, which seemed
as if they were never coming to an end, and entering a gateway,
ascended the narrow steps of the Scala di Ferro. All the rooms
were full!
SARDINIAN EXTORTION.
319
We retraced our steps in the dark to the Albergo dei Quattro
Mori, where I was fortunate enough to find shelter in a vast and
lofty room. Ihen followed a dispute with the porters, who demanded
neither more nor less than fifteen lire. After much fierce outcry
and even threats on their part, 1 dismissed my gentlemen with a
third of that sum, vowing to myself in future always to strike a
bargain beforehand with Sir Porter. Unhappily it is not only
with porters that one has to arrange prices beforehand in Sardinia,
but with hotel-keepers, muleteers, and coachmen, with every one in
fact who is employed in what the Germans expressively call the
**■ stranger-trade."
Woman of Quartu.
slopes ot the Gennargentu.
CHAPTER IV.
Cagliari. — The Vanity of Achievement. — The Gate of the Elephant. — The Roman
Amphitheatre. — Divination and Sorcery. — The Cathedral. — Some Monuments
and their Moral. — The Castle of Ugolin. — In the Campidano. — An Arcadian
Festival. — Religious Services and Processions. — The Migrations of a Saint. —
The Philosophic Donkey. — Peasants' Dresses. — Tunny-fishing.
CAGLIARI, the ancient Caralis, is built in the form of an amphi-
theatre on the slope of an isolated hill. Its curious streets, with
their lengthy balconies of forged iron obtained from the Spaniards, its
domed houses, its antique towers and old ramparts, its belfries, and the
high quarter on a platform of volcanic rock, all make it a city well
worth a visit. From a distance it resembles an Eastern town, and
imagination might compare it to a gigantic bird taking flight towards
Tunis. It is surrounded by extensive salt-lagoons, and faces the
spacious Gulf of Angels, degli Angelz, now better known as the Gulf
of Cagliari.
The origin of the town dates from remote antiquity. The
Carthaginians extended it, and it was for long in the occupation of
the Romans. It was invaded by the Vandals, fell into the power
of the Goths, and at a later period was sacked and put to fire and
sword by the Saracens. Pisans, Genoese, Aragone.se, and Spaniards
in turn contributed to it their arts, laws, and customs. All these
320
A SERMON IN CANVAS. 32 1
divers peoples have left their impress, not only on the buildings, but
also on the beliefs and customs and even the dress of the people.
The narrow Via de Barcelona, for instance, almost overshadowed
by its artistic wrought-iron balconies, is almost as Spanish as a street
in the town after which it is named. A singular effect is produced
by the multitude of ropes fastened transversely across the street and
used for drying linen ; the white and coloured cloths floating in the
wind giving the impression of festival decorations.
I had a letter of recommendation to the Rev. Father Fondacci,
Superior of the Dominican Priory, and late one evening I climbed
the steep streets to the monastery. The entrance porch gave access
to a cloister. The corridor, which was deserted and dimly lighted,
was bordered by lofty wrought-iron railings, through which I saw a
vague glitter of ornaments on the altars of side-chapels. At the far
end of the cloister, under the very arch of the vault, my attention was
arrested by a large picture, representing a dead knight clad in
armour, with his hands crossed on his breast, i^bove him was an
immense genealogical tree, the leaves of which consisted of miniatures
of people of all ranks and professions, bishops, priests, rough warriors,
grave students, pensive nuns, and young women with pale, transparent
faces. The effect of this picture in the uncertain light of the ancient
cloister was very singular, and suggested a whole train of thought of
the vanity of human life. Generation had succeeded generation, and
each had produced people of importance in their day — women famed
for their beauty, warriors who had won glory by their courage,
students and ecclesiastics noted for learning or for piety ; yet what
remained of them now, save these pale miniatures on a forgotten
picture in an obscure monastery ? Methought the good friars were
well advised if they intended the picture as a ' reminder of the
paltriness of this life. No religious emblem could have pointed the
moral so well.
When I left the priory, the streets of the quarter of Villanova, in
which it is situated, were deserted, and in contrast with the psalmody
to which I had just been listening in the monastic church, I heard the
distant tinkle of guitars.
21
32 2 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
On the next day I again visited the priory, and saw the father
superior. A gale had been blowing all night, and the wind, which
was still high, shook the white habit of the Dominican, and his brown
mantle, which he vainly sought to keep in place, floated in large folds
round his face. With the priest for Virgil, I then set out to visit the
town. Passing through the old Pisan quarter, with its lofty houses
and long vistas of narrow streets, we emerged by one of the gates,
opening on the square in which stands the famous Towers of the
Elephant, Torre deW Elefante, erected by the Pisans in 1307, The
two square towers are perhaps the most prominent objects in Cagliari,
and quite dominate' this lofty quarter of the city. The towers, which
are exceedingly well-preserved, probably owe their name to the figure
of an elephant carved on one of the projections of the building.
The interior was long used as a prison for those condemned to death.
While I was gazing at the dark, yawning gateway under the
edifice, some Sardinians, strangers to Cagliari, suddenly emerged
from the shadows, and as the sunlight fell on, their strong faces and
velvet doublets, I almost imagined myself transported back to the
Middle Ages.
The most interesting monument in Cagliari is undoubtedly the
Roman Amphitheatre, which occupies the middle of a ravine, and
was capable, it is said, of containing twenty thousand spectators.
Certainly its dimensions appear very large, but as a matter of fact
the ruin cannot compare in size with the similar remains in Italy or
even Southern France, which is proof of the subordinate importance of
Sardinia at that epoch. The vomitories and rows of seats are mostly
hewn out of the solid rock, the tiers on one side rising to the level of
the summit of the hill, while on the other side, where the ground is
flatter, the amphitheatre was completed by masonry. The vaults
beneath the arena still contain iron rings, to which wild beasts were
fastened ; and an immense cistern in the vicinity, dating from the
period, leads some to the belief that the representations occasionally
included the naval fights which were so popular a feature of the
Roman games.
In the evening I returned with the reverend father to the priory,.
Gate of the Ji,lepnant.
SARDINIAN SORCERY.
^25
where, sitting in the immense sacristy at twilight, we talked of the
people and their beliefs and customs. He was a Corsican, and being
thoroughly acquainted with all the legends and superstitions of his
native island, was better able to appreciate those of Sardinia.
He considered the Sardinians quite as superstitious as the
Corsicans, and said they were still addicted to all kinds of witchcraft.
Roman Amphitheatre.
Some, in fact, made scorcery a trade, w^ith no other object than that
of abusing the innocence and credulity of the poor.
" I knew two men," said the reverend father, " who had advanced
several hundred lire to a reputed witch, and, by her advice, performed
all sorts of ridiculous rites to secure the success of a venture in which
they were engaged. The witch had given them charms, which they
always wore, but were on no account ever to open, for fear of breaking
326 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
the spell and bringing great misfortunes on themselves. One of
these amulets came into my possession, and I had the curiosity to
open it. What do you think it contained ? A few blades of grass
and pieces of palm leaf. It is nothing unusual for us, priests and
monks, to be asked for una scritticellu, that is to say a fetish paper
bearing some mystical words, or a picture to bring good luck.
" The Sardinians are much given to cabalistic practices. A man,
with whom I was well acquainted, passed for a great divinator, and
was specially famed for discovering the site of buried treasure. One
day, three men came to consult him regarding a field which they
knew contained a treasure, though they were ignorant of the exact
spot where it was buried. The divinator gave his services for
payment of a large sum in advance, and accompanied the treasure-
hunters to the place indicated. There he described some cabalistic
curves on the ground, murmured some unintelligible words, and
thought profoundly. ' Yes ! ' said he at length in a grave voice, ' the
treasure is there, but it cannot yet be taken.' ' Why ? ' asked the
men. The sorcerer sadly averted his head without answering, but
as the men insisted on a reply, finally said, ' Well, since you are
so bent upon having the truth, know that the treasure cannot be
removed unless one of you, it doesn't matter which, die before the
Angelus.' Thereupon the three Sardinians took to flight, in terror,
and — all three are still living.
" The Sardinians believe firmly in dreams. One day I was sent
for by an old woman from a neighbouring village. I went, and she
told me that her husband had dreamed that he had seen a treasure
in a certain field. On awaking, he told his wife, and both were
convinced that their fortune was made. The man, without loss of
time, went to the place he had seen in his dream, and there, sure
enough, he beheld the treasure and even touched it with his hands.
It was a massive ingot of gold, but so sunk in the earth as to require
a pick-axe to extricate it. He hurried home joyfully to fetch the
implement, but lo ! when he came back to the field the ingot was
gone, and he could not even rediscover the spot where he had seen it.
He returned sorrowfully to his wife, and the poor woman imme-
THE POWER OF THE PRIESTS.
27
diately sent for
me to give her
some object which
would enable
them to find the
treasure, of the
existence of
which they were
firmly persuaded ;
for had not the
man actually
handled it ? The
woman could not
be made to under-
stand that her
husband, full of
his dream, had
been the victim
of a hallucination.
"The lower
classes of Cagliari
have absolute
confidence in the
priests, especially
in the monks,
whom they be-
lieve capable by
the mere exercise
of their will, not
of removing
mountains per-
haps, but of the
more difficult
achievement of
conferring or
Pisan Gateway.
328 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
taking away wealth and happiness. They are so miserably poor,
that their constant idea is to discover a treasure. They are the prey
of superstitions without number. They believe in the jettatura, the
streghe, and omens of all sorts. Even their religion is superstition.
Often, after mass, mothers bring children who are cutting their teeth
to the priest, that he may place his fingers on the gums to soothe the
pain. When they have a headache, they pray to the saints — and
if they are not cured, they blame the saints, saying, ' They are deaf,
or they don't listen, and yet I have made many novenas! "
The day after my visit to the amphitheatre I devoted again to
the old Pisan quarter, and inspected the cathedral which is dedicated
to Saint Cecilia. This edifice was erected by the Spaniards, on the
site of the old Pisan church which threatened to fall. Two side-
doors still remain of the older building, and show that it must have
been much finer than its successor. One of them contains fragments
of still more ancient masonry, and the architrave is made of a Roman
sarcophagus. The facade, of comparatively modern date, is com-
posed eptirely of marble, and is of great richness, but the general
effect is heavy. The same criticism applies to the interior, where red
Sicilian marble has been far too lavishly employed. At the same
time, the high altar, with its marble reredos, a fine crucifix, and four
candlesticks of wrought silver, is certainly very beautiful, and the
silver tabernacle ten feet high is a noble object, not so much because
of the precious metal of which it is composed, as for its artistic
qualities.
The marble crypt contains three chapels, in one of which,
dedicated to Saint Lucifer, who is much revered in Sardinia, is a
monument to the queen of Louis XVI 1 1., who died in London in
1 8 10. Her remains were brought to the island, and interred in this
mausoleum, which was restored by her brother, Charles Felix, king of
Piedmont and Sardinia, by whose orders, no doubt, was carved the
figure of a weeping angel, which surmounts the tomb.
What a contrast there was between this place of sepulture and
the monuments in the Campo Santo, which I visited with the
Dominican on the same day !
THE SOCIALISTS OF SILIQUA. 329
The monuments in the cemetery were of extraordinary elaborate-
ness. White symbolical statues gleamed among the black cypresses,
and immense bouquets of flowers, wreaths, and crowns, brought to the
graves on All Souls' Day, still scented the air. There was nothing
funereal or solemn in the whole graveyard, which spoke far more of
the pride of life than of the humility of death. It seemed as if the
survivors, in honouring their dead, were influenced rather by the
ambition of display and vanity of wealth or rank than by the simple
wish to show respect to the last resting-places of their loved ones.
The statues were formal and in the worst taste. One was that of a
young woman, dressed with great care, leaning forwards with clasped
hands to meet a dead man, represented by a bust, rising from the
tombs. The inscriptions, which were revoltingly bombastic, were
in golden or red letters on panels of white marble.
The most humble and most solitary of village " God's acres " were
more congenial, I thought, than this superficial display.
1 left Cagliari early one morning to visit the castle of Acqua-
fredda. It was still dark as we sped along the margin of the
lagoons of Decimomannu, where I changed into the branch train
that goes to Iglesias. The sunrise was reddening the ruins of the
castle, as I alighted at the station of Siliqua, for the village of that
name, which is situated in an extensive plain dotted here and there
with dark carob trees.
The inhabitants of Siliqua are practical socialists. They possess
in common a vast orchard, in which each family enjoys the produce
of a certain number of trees, and scrupulously respects those be-
longing to other families. This community entails neither disputes
nor conflicts, and these peaceable villagers in an out-of-the-way corner
of the world seem to have realised, simply and without disturbance,
the theories which elsewhere have caused the waste of such oceans
of ink and often of rivers of blood. They are swayed by no sordid
ambition, and never dream of living in idleness at the cost of
others : their wants are few, and having their own rights, they respect
the rights of others, and dwell in industrious peace.
The walls of the old castle, which I had come to visit, crown an
330 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
isolated porphyry rock, some thousand feet high, rising in the middle
of the plain, on the margin of the slow waters of the Bixerri. The
ascent is rough and even dangerous in places, but the view over the
Campidano is magnificent.
Standing alone on the arid summit, I thought of the emaciated
form of the unfortunate Ugolin, once the master of this strong castle
and of the fair valley at my feet. I realised the pages of Dante's
Inferno, in which Ugolin is described as gnawing the nape of the
neck of his executioner, the archbishop Ruggieri, and after wiping his
lips on the hair of the archbishop's head, saying to his visitor, " Dost
thou wish me to recount a desperate grief, the mere memory of which
oppresses my heart, before I even speak of it ? "
I seemed to see the dungeon and hear the pitiful cry of one of his
children, —
'''Padre i?iio, die non vi aiuti?' "'Thou dost not help me, my father?'
Qtiivi mori" Whereupon he died."
And for three days afterwards, the bereaved father called despairingly
upon his children, poi die fu viorti, when they were dead. If the
immortal pages of Dante can make one shudder when one peruses
them, as it were, in cold blood, how much greater is the effect when
one reads them in the very ruins of the castle of one of the characters
whom he mentions, sitting alone on a bare summit where only dead
things recall those which have lived !
Nature herself seemed to heighten the realism of the scene. At
early morning, the sun had bathed the Campidano with light, the
distant buildings of Cagliari had glittered like glass on a shining
shore, and the mountains had been softened by a translucent azure
haze. Now, the sky was being swept by livid clouds : a rising wind
whistled through the ruins, and the plain was darkened by shadows.
Count Alberto Ferrero della Marmora, in his exhaustive work
on Sardinia, describes a lugubrious encounter which befell him at
Domusnovas, a hamlet lying to the left of Siliqua. Coming to the
village in a storm, he rode under an archway which he took to be the
entrance, when his face was suddenly swept by something dank and
RUSTIC MERRIMENT. 33 I
clammy, like wet sea-weed, and, raising his eyes, he saw a human
head with long hair, placed on a transverse beam. At the same
moment a flash of lightning illuminated the dead face with its sunken
cheeks, sunken eyes, and open mouth. In fact the archway was a
gallows-tree, and the head was that of a woman, executed a month
before, and, according to the old custom, nailed to the arm of the
instrument as a warning to other evil-doers.
After these depressing souvenirs, it was quite cheering to find that
the clouds had been dispersed by the wind, and to see the Campidano
once more smiling in the sunlight. As I went along the road, more-
over, I was favoured with one of the most charming pictures of rustic
gaiety I had ever seen. On an immense car, drawn by oxen with
wide-spreading horns, was a group of men and women, the latter in
flame-coloured robes bordered with gold, the former in purple velvet
doublets and wearing the Phrygian cap. One of the women was
playing a tambourine, accompanied by a player on the launedda^
a flageolet with three reeds, the tibicE iinpares of the ancients.
The car halted, and, with the exception of the musicians, men and
women, masters and servants without distinction, alighted on the
sward and danced a graceful round dance, known as the ballo tondo.
The performers kept strict time to the somewhat serious measure,
which, I was told, is very difficult to learn.
After dancing for some minutes, the party reascended the car,
which slowly proceeded, the sounds of the tambourine becoming
fainter as it receded ; and presently I could only distinguish the
sharp notes of the flageolet. When a considerable distance off, the
vehicle again stopped, and the occupiers once more alighted to foot it
for a few moments on the turf, as if their joy could not be contained
and required to find expression at intervals by means of the dance.
Such pleasant parties are often to be encountered in the Campi-
dano, the occupants of the car often being townsfolk proceeding to,
or returning from, some rustic festivity. The vehicles are provided
with mattresses, provisions, and kitchen utensils. In the warm nights
of spring and summer, the travellers sleep and prepare their meals in
the open air. The entire household down to the smallest children
332 ^ THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
take part in these outings, and often entire days are passed singing,,
dancing, reciting verses, and resting under the shade of the trees.
To see these simple merry-makings is to imagine oneself in Arcady
in the Golden Age.
I returned to Siliqua as the sun was setting behind the mountains
of Sulcis, and it was night when I reached the city.
Cagliari has several convents and a few monasteries ; but for the
most part their days of prosperity are over, and many are deserted
or entirely abandoned.
The Emperor Charles V. conferred the title of "Royal" on the
Dominican Priory, where I visited Father Fondacci, and gave it
numerous privileges. Three of its friars have at different times been
called to occupy archiepiscopal sees.
The church of the Dominicans is nowadays the most frequented
in the city, and the festival of St. Blasius, whose relics are preserved
in the edifice, is one of the most popular holidays of Cagliari. For
forty-eight hours there is a constant procession of the faithful to kiss
the relic ; and as they place their offering in the collection-plate, the
priest gives to each a handful of small, round biscuits called bisto-
qiielliis, basketfuls of which stand ready by the side of the minister.
These blessed biscuits arc carefully preserved as charms against
misfortune.
The same church is also used for the novena before Christm.as,
which the Sardinians call the novena de la speranza (novena of hope),.
during which there is not only a sermon and benediction every
afternoon, but high mass followed by morning benediction an hour
before sunrise each day. The people of Cagliari, who are otherwise
habitually late risers, even in summer, take care not to miss these
services, and the church is always full by daybreak ; the common
people side by side with the wealthy middle class and the aristocracy.
On Christmas Eve, great is the throng to hear the midnight mass, the
nave, the sacristy, and even the cloisters being crowded as early as
ten o'clock. Shortly before midnight a deacon ascends the pulpit,
and chants the genealogy of our Saviour from the Gospel of Matthew^
and when the hour strikes the mass begins. As the priest intones
SAN EFISIO. 333
the Gloria in excelsis, a curtain concealing the "crib" is drawn aside,
and the Holy Infant appears above the altar, lying in the manger
between the Blessed Virgin and Saint Joseph. At the same moment
an angel, guided by a wire, descends from the roof of the church at
the end opposite the high altar, and stops above the " crib." The
figure carries a scroll, on which is written, " The Angel of the
shepherds of Bethlehem. Gloria in excelsis Deo'.'
The excitement caused among the congregation by this dramatic
representation is indescribable, even finding vent in loud cries and
shouts of joy.
Most of the religious ceremonies in vogue at Cagliari were
instituted by the Spaniards, and up to quite recently certain services
were conducted in Spanish. The societies and confraternities are
innumerable. The oldest and most celebrated is that of the Rosary,
dating from the year 1334, the date of the foundation of the
Dominican Priory. This confraternity possesses the flag under
which, in 1571, the four hundred Sardinian soldiers, who took part
in the battle of Lepanto, fought on board the flagship, Don John of
Austria. Historians even say that it was the Sardinians who killed
the Turkish commander, Ali Pacha, and thus greatly contributed to
the defeat of the infidels.
The churches of Cagliari number about fifty, without including
the oratories and chapels. Several of them are well worth a visit,
especially that of San Francisco, which is a fine example of Gothic
architecture, and that of San Efisio, in the walls of which are
imbedded some of the cannon-balls and other projectiles fired by
the French in 1793. The repulse of this expedition, in fact, was
attributed by the common people to the intervention of the saint,
and increased the veneration in which his memory has been held ever
since the great plague which desolated Sardinia in 1656.
Dating from that epoch, it has been the custom every year to
cany the statue of San Efisio in solemn procession to Cape Pula,
where a chapel has been built in his honour, and near which he is
traditionally believed to have been decapitated by order of Diocletian,
whose general he was. The statue, which is painted in vivid colours,
.34
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
represents the saint wearing a cuirass, and a helmet decked with
ostrich plumes. A Spanish mantle covers the shoulders. One hand
is placed on his heart, and the other holds the martyr's palm.
On the 1st of May in each year, the statue is fixed in a kind of
crystal chair, decked with streamers, and placed on a blue and gilt
car, drawn by black oxen, specially bred and fattened for the
occasion. Their horns are ornamented with orancres, tufts of bright-
Car of San Efisio.
coloured wool, tiny mirrors, necklaces, and bells, while a large bell is
suspended round their necks.
The procession is the great event of the year, and is attended by
people from all parts of Sardinia, the number of persons following
being estimated at twenty thousand.
It is related that the inhabitants of Pula were much aggrieved
at seeing the relics of the saint fall into the hands of the people
of Cagliari, and after much persevering agitation, at length were
granted the privilege of being permitted to take charge of the
A PIOUS FRAUD. 335
remains' of the saint for three days in each year. This was the
origin of the famous procession, but the greatest precautions were
taken on either side to watch the reHcs during the transit, the people
of CagHari suspecting that the Fula folk might substitute some casual
skeleton for the sacred bones, while those of Pula imagined that the
Cagliarese might try to palm off on them a common body for the
genuine article.
San Efisio is not the only Sardinian saint whose remains undergo
an annual translation. In the Middle Ages the relics of San Antioco
were preserved at Sulcis ; but as that town, from its position on
the seaboard, was exposed to piratical incursions, the treasure was
removed to Iglesias for safety, and merely conveyed in procession
every year to Sulcis, where it remained for one day, and was then
taken back to Iglesias.
Unhappily it was Iglesias which was eventually sacked by the
Saracens, and the terrified inhabitants abandoned the saint to the
votaries of Mahomed. When, later on, a search was made for
the relics, they could not be found, whereupon some piously fraudu-
lent individuals collected a few bones from a heap of skeletons and
bore them back in triumph to Sulcis, where for a long time they
were venerated as the genuine relics of the holy man. Such at least
is one of the stories told by the sceptical.
Another religious " lion " is to be found at Cagliari in the church
of St. Augustine, behind the high altar of which the body of the
Bishop of Hippo reposed for two centuries, after being brought
from Africa by St. Fulgentius. At the end of that period the
Saracens captured the body in one of their periodical descents on
Sardinia, and sold it for a high price to Luitbrand, king of the
Lombards, who wished to place it in a shrine at Pavia. The
Sardinians, furious at being deprived of the relic, attacked both
the Saracens and Lombards, but were defeated, and only succeeded
in recovering the doctor's vestments, which they have religiously
preserved ever since.
The houses of the poorer classes in the suburbs of Cagliari are
only one-storey buildings, generally containing but a single room,
2,^6 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
receiving both air and light by means of the door. Thus the passer-by
can see the whole domestic life of the family at one glance. I was
much struck by the invariable cleanliness of these interiors. Nearly
every house has its mill— a primitive apparatus, turned by a miniature
donkey, with its eyes blindfolded and a muzzle on its mouth, to
prevent the greedy creature snatching an occasional brimmer of
flour for its own consumption.
An old author states that Pittacus of Mitylene used to pass the
time by turning his own mill, and that he found the exercise very
conducive to thought. This being so, the Sardinian donkeys must
be great philosophers, for they turn the mill for fully seventeen hours
out of the twenty-four.
One Sunday afternoon, I visited Quartu, one of the most im-
portant villages in the neighbourhood of Cagliari. It is separated
from the city by the lagoon of Molentargiu, which is about four miles
across. The hamlet, the roads of which are paved, in consequence
of the mud which accumulates in winter, offers nothing remarkable
in itself ; but the costume of the women is superb. The people were
dancing in the public square when I visited the village ; and I was
amazed at the richness and originality of their attire, the bright
colours of the brocades, the wealth of embroidery and lace, and the
jewels flashing on the breasts of the women. I had the good fortune
to meet a wedding party passing down the street to the music of
launeddas, and could not but admire the radiant costume of the
bride.
Walking on along the road, I passed others villages — Quartuccio,
where dancing was also in progress; Selargius, surrounded by gardens;
Pauli-Pirri ; and finally Pirri, the hamlet nearest to Cagliari, from
which it is little more than a mile distant. Here I saw another
wedding, the bride's costume being similar to that of Ouartu, while
the bridegroom's dress was even more remarkable.
Seeing all this brilliancy of attire, one could not but think of
the reverse of the picture, and of the constant fever which decimates
these poor contadini. The whole region is poisoned by the emana-
tions from the lagoons, and the most showy costumes often cover
a^/
Bride and Bridegroom of Pirri.
22
A MIRACULOUS COMPASS.
339
emaciated, broken-down
figures, and only serve to
enhance the sickly pallor
of malaria-furrowed faces.
Half an hour's distance
from Cagliari, in another
direction, is the monastery
of Santa Maria di Buonaria,
which, together with an
adjacent castle, was built
in the year 1323 by King
Alfonso of Aragon, who
gave them to the Mer-
cedaires,- monks who en-
joyed the double privilege
of wearing the escutcheon
of Aragon round their
necks and assisting at
public ceremonies with
swords by their sides.
The castle is now in
ruins, and only the church
of the monastery is stand-
ing. From the roof of the
nave hangs a miraculous
ivory carving of a small
ship, once brought to the
place by an unknown
pilgrim. This vessel
is said to act as a
weathercock, its bows
always pointing in the
direction of the wind
that may be blowing
in the gulf.
\9,
\\^\^
I
^//
A Panattara.
340 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
On my return from my visit to Buonaria, I met at the entrance
to the city a man wearing a singular dress, totally different from any
that I had yet seen in Sardinia. He was a native of Iglesias, where
the Spanish character seems to be preserved in the dress as well
as in the faces of the people.
Behind the mountains of Sulcis, where the town of Iglesias is
situated, are the famous tunny fisheries, which are at their height
in the month of May, when the mattanza takes place. The fish
are driven into a narrow space called by the fishermen the " death-
chamber," and are attacked on all sides with harpoons. The
scene is said to be very remarkable, the tunny making the most
desperate efforts to escape, lashing the water with their tails until
it becomes a mass of foam crimsoned with the blood from their
wounds. Formerly as many as thirty thousand fish a year were
captured in these "drives," but, nowadays, the number has greatly
fallen off.
One of the charms of Cagliari is the distinctive character of each
separate quarter of the town, giving one the impression of a number
of separate cities, each with its own characteristics and separate
population.
The maritime quarter, with its low houses and terraced roofs^
is quite different from Stampace, the commercial quarter ; and
Villanova, which is a Spanish town, bears no resemblance to Saint
Avendrace.
But all have this in common, that wherever one roams, one
encounters at every turn the costumes, traditions, and customs of
former times.
The panattare, a name formerly restricted to women-bakers, but
now applied to all working-class women, dress in red on feast days.
A large silk mantilla embroidered with brocade covers their head and
shoulders, their skirt is of white lace, and their neck and bosom
glitter with jewels.
The rigattieri, or men of the people, generally sellers of vege-
tables, the pescatori] fishermen, and carretieri, carters, are all addicted
to bright colours in their dress, generally wearing a sort of scarlet
A SARDINIAN SUNSET.
41
tunic, corpetto, with large buttons on the sleeves, woollen or
leather gaiters, and a tall red cap. The fishermen also wear scarlet
trousers, and a scarf of many colours fastened round their waists.
The small square at the gates of the high town is a magnificent
view-point, and the sunsets to be seen from here are often superb.
The Monte Santo and the hills of Iglesias fade into a purple haze
which obscures all confusing detail, while the level rays transform
some solitary crest into a veritable beacon, or falling on the lagoons,
make the water resemble molten metal. Then, quite gradually, the
light dies away ; the sea becomes grey and cold ; the lagoons sleep
darkly in the long shadows, and the lamps of the town and harbour
below, or of the vessels at anchor in the bay, seem like reflections of
the stars, coming out overhead.
A Rigattiere.
At the Foot of the Gennargentu.
CHAPTER V.
La Barbagia. — The Plain of Sarcidano. — Belvi. — An Artist's Dream. — The Douro-
Douro. — Sardinian Music. — The Grassazione. — Raids and Raiders. — A Heroic
Girl. — The Major's Adventure. — Up the Gennargentu. — Snow and Mist. —
Sardinian Women. — Evening at Aritzo.
HOWEVER much the traveller may see of that part of Sardinia
accessible by train and steamer, of its desert tablelands,
strange monuments, village-crowned heights, or malaria-infested
plains, the real Sardinia, that which preserves the characters, manners,
and dress of the nebulous days of its early history, escapes his ken.
For this, as in the Balearic Isles and in Corsica, he must adventure
into the wild recesses of the mountains, but, if he do so, his temerity
will be well rewarded.
The Latin Islands have known many successive invasions and
immigrations, and have been subjected to the influence of many
diverse peoples, whether in conquest by the sword or in the arts of
peace. More than that, they must undoubtedly have been a gathering
place for the many races dwelling on the borders of the inland
sea, even before the historic epoch. Hence, in Sardinia itself, we
have met with Spaniards, Corsicans, Italians, Moors, and Sardinians,
whose blood is a commingling of five races. But the influx of foreign
elements has always been confined to the coasts and plains and
low-lying valleys, and, except for a few casual splashes, as it were,
342
THE BARBAGIA,
34
0^0-
primitive Sardinia has been unaffected by the successive waves of
immigration, and the mountaineers of the remote districts are the
same to-day as they were in the earliest ages.
The granite outcrop in the centre of the island, a region of
alternate forest and stony summits, of mountain pastures and deep
ravines threaded by impetuous torrents, is the home oi a little-known
race of strong and hardy people, who have retained, almost intact for
ages, their original dress and primitive manners.
The two chief races are the Iliesi and the Barbaracim, and the
district which they inhabit has for many ages borne the name of
Barbagia, the country of the barbarians.
A double origin is traditionally ascribed to these people. The
344 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
older section were Trojans, who, after the fall of Troy, wandered
about the Mediterranean, and finally settled in Sardinia, where they
occupied a part of Barbagia, to which they gave the name of Iliesi.
The Barbaracini^ as the name implies, are of more savage descent.
When Genseric, king of the Vandals, after laying waste Northern
Africa, invaded Sardinia, where he shed torrents of blood, he brought
with him a horde of Numidians, upon whom he bestowed the district
-of the Gennargentu, thinking that this wild region of inaccessible
mountains, dangerous passes, and impenetrable forests well suited a
race of marauding savages.
The event proved the correctness of the idea, and if Genseric
wished to leave behind him a perpetual reminder of his invasion, he
•certainly attained his object, for the descendants of these Numidians
were for years a scourge to the whole island, carrying terror and
desolation wherever they went. Their constant raids and acts of
pillage at length forced the more peaceable inhabitants to combine
in making an attempt to put down the freebooters, and after a
prolonged and varied guerilla warfare, the Barbaracini, finding them-
selves prevented from living on other people, were compelled by sheer
necessity to turn from rapine to more peaceful industries. The spear
became the shepherd's crook, and the sword was exchanged for the
spade and mattock. Finally, in the year 594, peace was concluded
between them and the rest of the Sardinians. Under the terms of
this treaty the barbarians consented to renounce their idolatry and
receive baptism ; but they still clung to their pagan customs, and
retained, in the bleak mountain fastnesses of this remote island, the
superstitious traditions and gorgeous dress brought by their Numidian
forefathers from the burning soil of Africa.
The women of Barbagia have a reputation for unchastity, to
which Dante alludes in the " Divine Comedy," —
** Che la Ba7'bagia de Sardinia assai
Nelle femine sue e piu pudica
Che la Barbagia dov' io la lasciai!'
Even now, the women of this mountain region of Sardinia display
BACK TO THE MOUNTAINS.
;45
a certain looseness in their attire, which is, to say the least, uncon-
ventional. Their breasts are barely hidden by a chemise of flimsy
texture ; and it is little probable that they have altered the dress
worn by the women of antiquity, since the men are still clad in the
vtastrucca which they wore in the days of Cicero. The inastrucca
is the national garment. It is formed of four goat skins sewn
together, leaving two openings for the arms, and is sleeveless. A
mountaineer, wearing these long-haired
skins, through which protrude his
scarcely less hairy, muscular arms, with
his legs encased in brown gaiters, and
his shaggy locks covered by a red
Phrygian cap, might well pass for one
of the barbarians of former days.
The centre and crown of the Bar-
bagia country is the snowy summit of
the Gennargentu, the ascent of which is
one of the most interesting excursions
to be made in Sardinia.
Availing myself of the narrow-
gauge mountain railway, which con-
nects Cagliari with Aritzo and Nuoro,
I started early one morning on my visit
to this remote district and its chief
mountain, the Silvern Gate, as its name
signifies. On leaving the city the line
runs for some distance along the border
of the lagoons, the still waters of which
reflected the pale sky of dawn, and stretched sad and silent to an
apparent infinity of distance. Here and there a flock of rose-
coloured ibis slept on the marge, and the monotonous shore-line
was pleasantly diversified by an occasional coppice of palm trees.
Looking back, as the train rounded a curve, I saw Cagliari, more
than ever like an Eastern city, with its white cupolas, belfries, and
turrets, reddened by the first rays of sunrise.
,,:'^
The Mastrucca.
\46
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
As the line rises towards the interior, the character of the country
gradually changes, and the marshlands give place to bare, mono-
tonous undulations, which in
turn yield to steep, stony hills,
where the train climbs sharp
gradients and rounds unexpected
curves.
From time to time, I noticed
from the windows processions
of men and women marching
gravely behind immense cattle
with exaggerated horns, recalling
forcibly the archaic figures of
men and animals, which one
sees in early Italian pictures on
a background of gold.
Gradually the prospect
widens, and on the heights we
once more meet the skin-clad
shepherds, who seem to lead so
contemplative a life, leaning on
their crooks and gazing con-
stantly on the infinity of sea
and sky.
Wind-driven trees find a
scanty lodgment on the rocky
slopes, and on some of the lower
heights rise ruined chapels with
broken belfries, through the
gaps in which one sees the sky
beyond.
Near Fontanamela, seventy miles from Cagliari, the line skirts a
series of wild, wooded gorges, the hills overlooking which are covered
with forests of beech and chestnut. The sun gleams occasionally
through the clouds ; and twice from the lower slopes of the Gennar-
Sardinian Shepherd.
BELVI AND ARITZO. 347
gentu, which we are now cHmbing, we see the whole country through
which we have passed, stretching in undulation upon undulation to
the vague line of the distant sea.
Grey and white clouds, fragments ot spent storms, float in the
luminous atmosphere and cast broad bands of moving shadows,
which give the country the appearance of an ocean of monstrous
waves. We cross the vast shelving plain of Sarcidano, formerly
covered with forests of oak, but now for the most part an arid waste.
At the western end, the plateau ends in a vertical precipice three
hundred feet high, at the foot of which the village of Laconi is built
in the form of an amphitheatre, on the banks of the torrent which
descends from the heights above.
Laconi is a great centre for sportsmen. Deer and wild boar
abound on the Sarcidano plateau, and DiouflonSy driven down by
the snow from the Gennargentu, are occasionally to be met with in
winter and early spring. The hunts are organised on a large scale,
and a special train is generally requisitioned to bring the hunters,
with their beaters and hounds, from the city. After leaving Laconi,
the train buries itself in a dense forest, to emerge on the edge of
a precipitous and tortuous valley, the windings of which are followed
by the line as far the station of Belvi, where I alighted.
Great was my surprise, as I crossed the platform, to be addressed
in French by one of the station men. The poor fellow, it appeared,
was a French boy who had been deserted in Sardinia some years
previously by his father, and after a futile search for more remunera-
tive work, had ended by obtaining employment at this poverty-
stricken station of Belvi.
Belvi is the station for Aritzo, a mountain village at the foot of
the Fontana Congiada, and the most convenient starting-point for
the wild district of the Barbagia. Belvi itself is an Alpine village
much like those in the French cantons of Switzerland, and the houses
with their projecting balconies resemble the model Swiss chalets,
familiar to us from childhood. A steep path leads from Belvi to
Aritzo, which is situated nearly 3,000 feet above the sea. As I
w^alked up, I caught my first glimpse of the primitive people of the
348
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
mountains. Women dressed in red skirts, with a slight chemise
barely veiling their ample bosoms, were working in the fields, and
men passed us attired, some in blue velvet doublets, and others, to
mark the contrast, in sheepskin vests with the skin outermost.
The first view of Aritzo, as I ascended from the railway was very
charming. The
^'^...^f ' ' village seemed to
be clinging to the
mountain side in
a lofty gorge ; and
its Pisan belfry, and
red, yellow, and
ebony houses, with
their old, carved-
wood balconies,
harmonised well
with the mellow
tints of the sur-
rounding forest,
the autumnal
colouring of which
took a new lustre in the light
of the spring-like sun shining
overhead.
Aritzo is an artist's dream
realised. Most of the houses
are built of a slaty schist, which
glitters like silver in the sunlight,
and, in the shadow, is a deep,
lustrous purple. The roofs are
of red tiles, and project over quaint, wooden balconies, hanging like
swallows' nests beneath the eaves, and, for the twitter of birds, we
hear the pleasant chatter of young mothers and the cooing of their
babies. Tumble-down stairways, shored up with irregularly placed
beams, form as it were hanging verandahs, simple but charmingly
:-^.
\^
^AfiKvr
^
Street in Belvi.
FACES AND DRESSES.
349
picturesque, especially when they enframe some handsome face of
sweet expression, or form the setting for a brilliant figure attired
in scarlet with puffed mediaeval sleeves, and a slanting ray, falling,
through a fissure in the woodwork, bars the velvet corsage with gold.
Balcony at Aritzo.
The time to see the dresses of the village is as the people come
out from high mass on Sunday or holiday. You will find women
dressed literally in purple and fine linen, and in shimmering brocades.
350 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
brilliant with the brilliancy of the Oriental, and quaint with the
quaintness of the mediaeval. They descend the steps, with mother-of-
pearl and silver rosaries in their hands, and pass slowly into the
diaphanous shadow of the narrow streets, followed by the widows,
clad in black.
On the Sunday afternoon, you may, an it so pleases you, go down
to Belvi, to the dancing on the plaza. For my part, I passed the
time listening to four singers. The Sardinian rhythm, for it is not
melody, is the most extraordinary music in the world, and, once
heard, can never be forgotten.
It does not sound like the human voice. It is rather a har-
monious murmur, which grows, dies away, and again swells to full
volume. Sometimes one note dominates, sonorous and pure ; then
the bass takes the upper part. Occasionally the voices are in unison,
while across the low accompaniment one voice seems to shake the
phrases of a recitative. This strange rhythm, which is very difficult
to understand, can only be compared to the music with which the
Arabs accompany their sacred chants.
At the sound of this singular music, the young men and women
of the village assembled together and gathered in a large circle round
the performers. The girls, holding each other by the hand, then
formed themselves into one group, while the young men did likewise ;
after which, the two parties formed a sort of chain, and quietly moved
in a ring, turning, advancing, and drawing back to the cadence of the
singers' voices. It was the favourite Sardinian dance, known as the
douro-douro. The music was grave and sweet, and grave also was
the movement of the dancers, which was rather an undulation than
a dance.
The richness of the dresses, the character or beauty of the faces,
the last rays of the setting sun falling in stained-glass tints upon the
autumnal hues of the forest, the distant valleys veiled with evening
mist, and the setting of the picturesque village, with its narrow streets,
and the woodwork ot the houses, all combined to give the spectacle
the character of some fair, or kermesse^ such as were common in the
Middle Ages.
FACES AND DRESSES.
351
A Widow.
Returning from Belvi, I reascended to Aritzo by a charming
mountain path. I paced slowly through the village street in the
twilight, wondering how best to utilise the hour, without returning to
352 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
the inn. Presently I struck a path bathed in shadow, alongside a
murmuring stream, which buried itself in a thicket of bare trees.
Here I met some women returning from the spring, with their
pitchers on their heads. They walked one behind the other, and the
crisp dead leaves on the pathway rustled beneath their tread.
In an adjacent clearing, I came upon a ruined chapel. The roof
had fallen in, and only some carved woodwork indicated the site of
the altar, which was bare and empty, without even a crucifix. The
ground was littered with the rubbish of the crumbling walls and the
dust of the dry-rot in the rafters. The last glimmer of twilight
vaguely lighted the interior, and I fell into a reverie, standing alone
in the wood, before these ruins which looked so sad and solemn in the
oncoming darkness. Suddenly I shuddered, as a sound fell on my
car. Something was moving in the debris, close at hand. I looked
and saw what seemed a bundle of living rags ! A man was prostrate
on the ground, his rosary in his hand, murmuring God knows what
orisons of despair. A blood-red gleam from' the west suddenly smote
the stones of the building, and the man rose slowly to his knees and
stretched out his arms towards the naked altar ; but the light faded
as quickly as it came, leaving the ruin the darker for the evanescent
radiance.
I shivered and turned homewards, finding my way back to the
village through the chill darkness by the uncertain starlight.
At dinner with mine host that evening, my feet turned com-
fortably to the brasero, and the traditional macaroni smoking on the
table before us, I related what I had seen in the ruined chapel.
" That man," said the innkeeper, " is making a novena. For nine
days in succession, he will go and grovel in the ruins of that vene-
rated sanctuary to expiate some fault. That is the way of it, in our
country. At one time or another the men will take arms by night,,
as they did at Belvi, and a hundred of them will make a descent upon
some hamlet. After firing their guns to intimidate the suddenly
awakened villagers, who barricade themselves in their cottages, the
raiders attack the house of the parish priest or some notable, torture
him by holding his feet to a heated stove, possibly strangle him, and
THE GRASSAZIONE.
j5o
finally set fire to the house. Then, after all this, they come and
grovel at the foot of the altar to make amends. The parish priest
of Belvi died last year, in consequence of a raid of this sort. He
lingered in agony for several months, a prey to terrible hallucinations
.and delirium, always still seeing and hearing his murderers."
As mine host was speaking, I thought of the romantic village and
its white rectory nestling amid the trees, where the birds sang all day
long, and seemed to see again
the handsome faces and
striking dresses of the dancers
and hear the strange rhythm
of the singers.
" Then," said I, to the inn-
keeper, " do you really believe
that those pleasant-looking
young men, whom I saw
dancing, would be a party to
such deeds of violence ? "
" It's very possible, even
probable. In any case, it
is rare that a grass azione —
which is the name given to
these nocturnal raids — takes
place without the people of
the village of F'onni being
mixed up in it."
The inhabitants of Fonni, it appears, are mostly shepherds.
They come down to the Campidano* about the month of May to
pasture their flocks, and strike up relations with the servants of some
rich family. These domestics, seduced by the promise of a share in
the booty, treacherously admit the robbers, tell them what pre-
cautions to adopt, and which is the easiest road to follow ; and also
apprise them when their masters have received a large sum of money.
* The Campidani are tire vast cultivated plains in the south and south-east of
-Sardinia.
23
Group at Aritzo.
354 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
Grassazioiie are rare in summer, owing to the shortness of the
nights, which do not allow of the robbers having time to get home
before dawn. Moreover, the poverty which is the most general
incentive to crime, does not press so hardly on the people in the
fine weather.
But whether robbery or vengeance be the motive, the raids are
always planned and carried out with as much care and energy as a
military expedition.
The chiefs in command, for there are generally several, are not
known to each other, but each brings his own men, on whom he
can rely.
At the appointed time the men assemble, their faces smeared
with soot or concealed by a black cowl ; and the chiefs hold a council
of war on the Moellone, near Tetti, and the cairn built by La
Marmora for surveying purposes.
At midnight or at one in the morning, the marauders set forth,
preceded by torch-bearers to light the way ; and, provided that
nothing happens to alarm the chiefs or make them retreat, the raiders
fall with all the fury of an attacking party upon the village, giving
vent to savage cries. " Niscinuo besseda ! " (" Let no one come out ! ")
they shout, and fire again and again, aiming chiefly at the windows,
which they riddle with shot.
While some shout and fire their guns, others, with hatchets, levers,
and pikes, attack the door of the house which is the object of assault.
Desperate cries are raised of " Adjutorio ! adjutorio 1 " (" Help !
help ! "). The door-panels fly in splinters, the people are killed or are
spared, as the case may be ; but in any event the house is ransacked
from cellar to garret, and everything of value is taken.
When the head of the family refuses to point out where his wealth
is hidden, or pleads poverty, the grassatori, who do not stand upon
ceremony, and are not easy to convince, light a stove and "smoke"
his feet. If he persists in his obstinacy, they make him sit on the
stove lid.
The gendarmes are not always able to cope with the miscreants ;
and the carabineers of Busachi and San Vero Mills have been known
A RAID FRUSTRATED.
355
to be blockaded in their barracks, while the grassatori were engaged
in " making money," as they say.
The raids are not always easily carried out, however, and the
brigands sometimes meet with desperate resistance. Quite recently,
at a place called Lei, a poor village on a height above the river
Tirso, the grassatori surrounded the house of the parish priest, while
the gendarmes were absent on a route-march. Two gendarmes had
stayed behind, however ; one a brave man, named Picardi, the other
little more than a boy.
The brigands tried at first to get Picardi out of the way by
inviting him to a carousal at scftne distance from the village, but with
such insistence, that the gendarme suspected a ruse, and, under plea
of fatigue, did not leave the barracks. Remaining in his clothes, he
watched all the evening, and towards midnight heard a distant
fusillade. Taking off his uniform trousers and wearing only his
drawers, which at night bore some resemblance to the trousers of the
countrymen, he put on his tunic inside out, girded his cartridge box
round his waist, took his gun, and sallied out bareheaded, followed
by his young comrade, who had imitated the disguise of his senior.
They crept along beneath the houses, guided by the men's shouts
and the sound of the firing, and reached the presbytery, to find that
it was being besieged by forty grassatori.
The priest, hatchet in hand, was bravely defending himself behind
his half-broken door. Picardi, in his disguise, ran among the crowd,
and fired point-blank with a charge of shot, while his comrade,
standing at a little distance, picked off individual men.
Some of the brigands fell, and a panic seized the others. They
thought they were betrayed and began to disperse, whereupon
Picardi shouted in stentorian tones, " Forward, my men ! Here they
are ! Present ! Fire ! "
" Curse them ! here are the carabinieri ! " yelled the brigands,
taking to flight with all speed.
Thus was prevented this particular grassaziojie, which was even
more dastardly than usual, being an attempt on the part of the
villagers against their own priest, who had the reputation of being rich.
35^ THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
Generally speaking, the grassatori come from a distance, and they
take cunning care so to arrange their movements as to be able to
prove an alibi ^ if they should happen to be brought to justice. When
any of them fall in action, their comrades immediately chop off their
heads, so that the bodies shall not be identified. The division of the
spoil does not take place immediately after the raid ; the money is
entrusted to a bugone, receiver, of stolen goods, or buried in the
ground, and the chiefs only distribute each man's share some time
later, when the robbery is beginning to be forgotten. Grassazione
are of only too common occurrence in Sardinia, and the law seems
powerless to prevent them.
Only a month or two before my arrival, the station of Chilivani,
on the main line of railway, was attacked by fifty men, and the
employes, after defending themselves for an hour, and exhausting
their ammunition, were compelled to seek safety in flight.
I must say that I did not suspect this blot upon the country.
As an artist, I was greatly attracted by the' character and beauty
of the people's faces, the originality, richness, and variety of
their costumes, and their perfect politeness ; but I thought that
the fever was quite sufficient scourge for the island, without
brigandage being added.
There is no end to the stories of these grassazione. At
eleven o'clock one night a band of twenty brigands entered the
township of Arroli, shouting '' Avanti Garibaldi!'' and fired several
volleys at the house of one Ghiani, a notary, while four of the
miscreants at the same time attacked the door with hatchets. The
panels were just giving way when the notary's daughter, a young girl
in her 'teens, seized a revolver, and fired all six chambers at the
robbers from a window. Several were wounded, and they took to
flight ; but the poor girl did not benefit by her heroism, for that same
night she lost her reason, from sheer terror.
Occasionally the raids are marked by terrible carnage.
On the night of November 6th, 1892, the inhabitants of Sorradile
were awakened by the sound of firing, accompanied by loud shouts
and cries of " Fuoco ! avanti ! niorte I " (*' Fire I forward ! death ! ").
NIGHT ATTACKS. 357
A wailing voice rose amid the uproar, crying desperately ^^ Aiuto !
^/^//^/"("Help! help!").
It appeared that after blockading the post of the carabinieriy
a large band of grassatori had carried by assault the house of the
parish priest, Bachisio Angelo Mariello. They had broken in the
door and rushed into the house like wild beasts. The cries for help
were those of their victim. Meanwhile five men of the village, aroused
by the sound of firing, hastily seized their arms, and, attacking the
sentinels of the grassatori, put them to flight. They then hurried to
the priest's house, but on the very threshold one carabineer and the
mayor of the village fell to the ground with bullets through their
breasts. " Coraggio, Sori'adile ! " (" Courage, Sorradile ! ") were the
mayor's last words.
The priest already lay stretched dead among the fragments of his
broken furniture. But the death of all three men was avenged, and
the streets of Sorradile and the fields of the vicinity ran red with the
blood of their murderers.
M. Georges Chapelle, a well-known Sardinian sportsman, told me
that, while on a hunting expedition with a friend, he received
hospitality for the night at a house in one of the mountain villages.
In the middle of the night they were awakened by the sound of
firing, and, being both well acquainted with Sardinia, guessed at
once what had happened. They dressed hurriedly, and, seizing their
guns, were making for the door to go out to the defence of the house
attacked, when their host came up and begged them not to court
certain death. Seeing that the hunters were disinclined to listen to
him, he called his wife and children, who went on their knees and
implored their guests to stay where they were. " You don't seem to
understand," said the host, " that they will kill you, and that your
death will do no good. On the contrary, the grassatori will be
infuriated, and to-morrow or the day after will come and attack my
house, and murder my wife and children." With this he commenced
tearing his hair and crying, " Ah ! Accursed be the day on which we
received you under our roof! Accursed the hospitality which we
have shown you ! "
35B THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
M. Chapelle and his friend shed tears of rage, on hearing the piteous
cries for help raised by the victims of the brigands ; but the children
screamed, and the wife in tears clung to their clothes. For two hours
they continued to hear cries of distress from the village, and begged
and prayed to be allowed to go to the rescue, but to no purpose.
They were unable to escape from the clutches of their host's family.
An amusing adventure is told of Count Spada, commander of the
carabinieri in the province of Sassari. He confidently boasted that
he would soon free the country from grassazione^ and caused it to be
announced that, if any brigands would surrender voluntarily, he would
restore them to liberty, after inflicting a brief punishment as a matter
of form. Some of the malefactors, believing in this assurance, gave
themselves up, whereupon they were mercilessly sentenced to long
terms of hard labour.
One evening at table at a mountain inn, the major boasted of the
security which, thanks to his energy, prevailed in the district.
" No more grassazione^^ said he, rubbing' his hands. " We are
safer on these mountains than on the public square of Sassari. How
times have changed ! "
Later in the evening — the date was May 4th, 1886— he entered
the mail coach to return to Macomer, accompanied by a notable of
Nuoro, and the syndic of Bolotana. The conversation continued, and
the major looked complacently at the mountains, the wild ridges of
which could be faintly discerned against the sky.
" You see," said he, " the night is as black as my hat, and we are
in the heart of the mountains, in utter solitude. Yet there is nothing
to fear, gentlemen. We are quite safe."
Hardly were the words out of his mouth, when a hailstorm of
bullets shivered the glass of the carriage windows. The horses rolled
over on the road, the driver was wounded, and the travellers only
escaped death by a miracle.
The brigands at once surrounded the carriage, and, aiming their
guns at the major and his two companions, ordered them to alight.
The bandits wore the dress of the village of Orgosolo with sandals of
wild boar hide, and their faces and hands were blackened. The chief
THE BOASTFUL MAJOR. 359
gave his orders in Italian, mingled with some jargon incompre-
hensible to the travellers.
The unhappy major was told to strip himself, and lie flat on the
ground on his stomach. He was wearing a diamond ring, and the
brigands disputed whether they should cut off his finger or merely
remove the ring. He forestalled the issue, by handing them the
jewel himself He was then soundly beaten with cudgels. After this,
the brigands broke open the mail-boxes and abstracted the contents,
rifled the luggage, and relieved the notable of his gold sleeve-links,
but, after careful examination, declined to take his watch, because
it bore his monogram.
The major's clothes were returned to him, after the pockets had
been turned out ; but his gun was taken by the bandits as a souvenir
of their meeting. The coachman eventually fetched other horses
from the nearest posting station, and the coach proceeded to Silanus,
where the unfortunate major, more dead than alive, took to his bed,
and was unable to rise for quite a fortnight.
The story of the boastful officer's prompt punishment was received
with keen delight throughout the island, and he was made the butt
of so many jokes, that he became ridiculous, and was removed from
his post by the authorities.
Occasionally the brigands work in large parties. Bands of
mounted men scour the country, stopping peaceful folk on the high
way, and compelling them to give information as to the wealthier
inhabitants and landed proprietors. At such times, the entire country
is on the alert, and parties of as many as fifty men will be told off
to watch day and night at any village where a raid is anticipated.
Such a state of things may appear incredible to the dweller in
more fortunate countries, where life and property are as secure as
civilisation can make them ; but the reader has only to refer to the
files of the Sardinian papers to find ample confirmation of all that
is wTitten above. Moreover, ancient historians, in speaking of the
Sardinians, apply to them the epithets pelliti and latrunculi\ and
Strabo tells us that the plains were constantly exposed to the raids of
the mountaineers, who lived like savages in the clefts of the rocks.
360 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
No doubt, one of the causes which has revived the instincts of
rapine, inherited by the Barbaracini from their ancestors, is their
extreme poverty. The Sardinians groan under taxation, and it is
stated that fully one-third of the island has become State property,
owing to the proprietors abandoning their estates, the produce of
which is not sufficient even to pay the taxes. A sheriff's officer,
who found nothing else to seize at a house in the village of Tetti,
tore out the earrings of a poor woman.
Heaven knows how the people manage to subsist in some of the
poorer villages in the Barbagia and Nuoro, where the only fare of
the peasants is barley-bread, garnished with a little Gadoni cheese,,
and in hard times often only bread, made from acorns, or even
potter's clay, with, occasionally, boiled beans. They grow plenty
of potatoes, but sell these at Cagliari, in order to purchase necessaries-
Is it, therefore, matter for surprise that grassazione should be sO'
frequent during the hard, dark days of winter, when the men of
Barbagia and the Nuoro are dying of cold in their miserable huts?
As to the people of Fonni, they are brigands by nature, having
in their blood all the violence and savagery of their race. It is
they who generally organise the midnight raids, and recruit men
from the poor folk of the neighbourhood.
Fonni is the highest village in Sardinia, and the winters there are
extremely severe. The hamlet is surrounded by forests, and the
Taloro torrent, which rises in the Gennargentu, passes through the
wild gorge, above which the village is built, and, after a rapid course^
falls into the stagnant waters of the Tirso, which are the chief cause
of the unhealthiness of Oristano.
The inhabitants of this Sardinian Siberia rear cattle and make
cheese. They are a wild, semi-barbarous race, of a type which
presents considerable affinity to that of the Moors. But, rough
as are the people, and savage as are the surroundings, the village
possesses a church dating from the thirteenth century, and a fine
cloister. Several other torrents besides the Taloro pass near the
village, and provide the motive power for some picturesque, primitive
mills.
THE GENNARGENTU. 36 I
For my excursion to the Gennargentu, I secured, after considerable
difficulty, two Sardinian guides who could be trusted, and one fine
morning found me bestriding my pony, and riding up the narrow
village street, where my head nearly brushed the bottom of the
overhanging balconies. The villagers stood on either side to sec
me set off, the men ranging themselves along the wall and solemnly
saluting as I passed, the industrious w^omen just looking up from
their interminable weaving and wishing me a smiling good day.
After passing the last houses, the road followed the dry bed of a
torrent, and when this came to an end, the path became a mere
groove in the rock, apparently hewn out by the constant passing
of horses and mules. The bluish schist, of which the roadway
was formed, was very slippery, and in places even dangerous. Up
and up we went, in the mellow shadow of the chestnut trees, through
the autumnal foliage of which the sunlight fell across the ground
in a golden trellis-work. The leaves linger on the trees in Sardinia
long after they have assumed the tints of decay, and fall from
the lowermost branches first, so that the denudation proceeds
regularly, and the foliage always remains graceful, with none of the
ragged ness seen in more northerly climes.
Ascending above the forest-line and leaving the trees behind us,
we crossed a vast, lonely expanse of common, where the only vege-
tation consisted of furze and whin, and the only sign of animal life
was one solitary vulture, a mere black speck, circling against the
intense blue of the mountain sky. Beyond the common-land came
a waste-place of rock and stone.
My guides were silent, and paced along with the true mountain-
eers' step, without hurry, yet without weariness, regularly, mechani-
cally, and apparently unconsciously. Over against us rose a bare
crest, looking as if it had been peeled. Underfoot was a pathless
tract of boulders and rough grass.
Behind the crest towards which we were ascending, Bruncu Spina,
the highest peak of the Gennargentu, rose with a gradual but majestic
slope, its snow-covered ridge standing out coldly against the sky. It
locked quite close ; but when we reached the shoulder of the hill, we
362 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
saw between us and the mountain a deep, savage valley covered with
forest. An icy wind blew in our faces, and our feet stumbled among
loose stones and lumps of frozen snow. The guides showed me the
Fontana congiada, frozen spring, where the people of Aritzo and Belvi
obtain the ice which they supply to all parts of the island in summer.
After a short rest, we began the descent of the valley separating
us from the mountain, and soon entered the forest, where we rode for
several hours without meeting even a single shepherd. We reached
the foot of the Gennargentu towards evening, and camped for the
night under the beech trees, sleeping on a bed of leaves, with our feet
outstretched towards a fire and goatskin coverlets on our shoulders.
The intense cold prevented any inclination for laziness, and before
dawn we were up and afoot, climbing towards the summit. The sun
rose as we ascended, a pale disc, barely showing through the mists,
which were floating round us and gathering over the ravines. The
crest of the mountain was entirely hidden, and the higher we went,
the more icy grew the wind.
After an hour's heavy walking, the guides asked if I wished to go
any further, remarking that the mist was growing denser, and that,
what with the fog and the depth of the snow, we should only be
incurring needless risks if we persevered in the ascent. I reluctantly
yielded to their counsels, and, turning my back on the mountain,
redescended to the valley.
As we approached the forest, the sun gleamed out for a moment
through the clouds, and my guides pointed out a herd of mouflons
speeding along in the distance. The herd was a large one, but the
animals moved with incredible swiftness, and soon disappeared in a
gorge. Stags, wild boar, and mouflons abound on the Gennargentu,
but in our two days' march we only had this one glimpse of the
animals, and then they were far beyond the range of our guns.
Towards evening we found ourselves back at the crest, from which
we had seen the snowy mountain on the previous day. The sky had
cleared and the sun was setting. Even from here, the view was
superb, comprising fully one-half of Sardinia, extending on the west
from the marshes of Oristano to the mountains of Iglesias, and the
WINTER IN SARDINIA. 363
vast mining district of Montevecchio and Monteponi, with the sharp
peaks above Masua and its argentiferous lead mines. Nearer at
hand, stretched the immense tableland of the Giara, famous for its
wild horses, which are caught with lassoes as on the South American
pampas.
The mists over the lowlands, which looked so beautiful from this
height, with their tints of violet and rose, were really charged with
miasmatic poison. When the wind is westerly, they are often carried
up by the breeze from the marshes to the mountain districts, and
cause sudden outbreaks of malaria in places otherwise most healthily
situated.
As the sun-rays became more oblique, the schistous rocks sparkled
like rich metallic ore, and the yellows and browns of the chestnut
forests turned to rich gold. We descended rapidly into the lengthen-
ing shadows of trees and rocks, regained the steep, slippery pathway,
and entered Aritzo as the first star shone out on the forefront of the
saffron-coloured evening sky.
November was nearly out, and winter was at our doors ; yet the
weather continued like spring. The sun shone brilliantly in a sky
of incomparable purity, and the days were warm. But the mornings
and evenings were decidedly fresh, and we never dined without a
brasero under the table, while a great fire of branches crackled in
the bedroom. I began to understand why the Sardinians wore such
thick clothing. They not only have to protect themselves against
the heat of the sun, but also against the sudden chill felt in the shade,
and the keen breath of the wind. The two mountain chains along
the Sardinian coasts run north and south, and the island is often
swept by an excessively cold wind under a blazing sun. In clothing
themselves as they do, therefore, the natives ward off the sudden
thills to which they are constantly exposed, and which, more than
anything else, engender the intemperia^ as malarial fevers are
called.
I had received a timely warning at Cagliari, not to venture to
shake hands with the Sardinian women or to attempt to joke with
them. The Sardinians are extremely jealous ; and an innocent
364 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
familiarity may often be taken by them as an insult, and be followed
by a thrust from a dagger without any preliminary warning.
The Sardinian women, beautiful and remarkably chaste as they
are, never appear at meetings of men, and it is not the custom to
introduce them to strangers
At Cagliari and other large towns they do not go out to do
their shopping like the women of other countries, the task of buying
provisions being generally entrusted to servants or men. At the
markets there are always crowds of little boys with baskets on their
heads, who, for a few halfpence, do the ladies' commissions and carry
the provisions home. These boys are called picciocus de crobi (little
ones with the baskets).
One evening, I heard sounds of quarrelling in the lower room of
the inn, and, going downstairs and looking through the half-opened
door, saw a characteristic picture. Through the thick smoke of half
a score of pipes, I perceived a number of men standing round the
table. They had been playing the Spanish game of rnorra, which
is very popular in Sardinia, and some dispute had arisen. The
savage-looking players, clad in fleeces, with frowning brows and
glittering eyes, were growling at each other like wild beasts,
thumping their clenched fists on the table and making threatening
movements, which bid fair soon to lead to actual fighting.
Suddenly the stalwart innkeeper appeared.
" Hold your noise ! " he cried in a voice of thunder. Then, turning
to me, he added, " Do you see the knife-blades glittering ? If I
didn't stop them, blood would flow. I've more than once seen a
man's hand nailed to the table with a dagger."
His words or his presence imposed order, and the players quietly
resumed their game ; nor was the night again disturbed, save by the
strange sound of the Sardinian rhythm, with which some of the men
soothed their ruffled spirits.
I never grew tired of hearing these weird folk-songs, whether sung
by professional singers on Sunday afternoons in the village, or
hummed by the peasant women, as they gathered chestnuts and
beechmast in the golden silence of the woods.
A WOODLAND WALK
365
The words of many of these sad ditties were composed by a
native bard, a young poet of Aritzo, who was smitten by an
unrequited love, and was murdered at the hour of vespers in one
of the streets of the village, — a victim to the jealousy aroused by his
hopeless passion.
The memory of this hapless mountain bard is held in great
reverence and affection by the women, who lighten their toil and rock
their children to sleep to the sound of his verses.
A--^
Warping the Woof.
One Sunday afternoon, the young Frenchman from Belvi station
came to visit me, and we went for a walk together. Passing down
the chief street of the village, we came to the little cascade where the
women were accustomed to draw water. The light filtered through
the yellow leaves of the overhanging trees on a bevy of girls in
bright red bodices, washing linen in a natural basin of foaming water,
white as snow.
We then followed a path through the chestnut woods. The
settinf;^ sun made the forest look as if it were on fire, and the dead
J
66 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
leaves on the hillsides resembled plates of gold. As we turned back,
we caught occasional glimpses of the village, the white and red
houses of which, surmounted by a coronal of blue smoke, seemed as
if lighted by a furnace. Near at hand, birds were twittering in the
branches ; and far below, in the valley, the shadow of night was
slowly rising upwards like a moving veil of gauze.
As we paced slowly along by a rushing stream, we heard the
sound of bells. We were not far from the village, and hurried on to
see the procession which had already left the church.
At a turn of the road, I saw it winding among the tortuous
streets, in the darkness of which the white-clad penitents, seen against
the grey walls, had the appearance of phantoms. The waving
banners, the tall, shining, brass crucifix, the priest in his vestments,
the women all dressed in scarlet, the widows all in black, the tinkling
bells, the sound of the blended voices singing a canticle, gave a
strange, vague charm to the procession, in this village encircled by
forests, on the slope of a great mountain, at the last hour of declining
day. But gradually the shadow of the hills extinguished the
brilliancy ; twilight and then night enfolded the scene, and the only
sound was the soothing, indescribable harmony of mountain silence.
Ancient Cart with Spokeless Wheels.
^ CHAFTER VI.
Desulo.— Sardinian Voetvy. —Fnria-furia. — Complicated Cookery. — The Fair of San
Mauro. — Wooing by Proxy. — '• Waking" the Dead. — The Birth of a Firstborn. —
The Flumendosa. — The Wild East Coast. — The King of Tavolara. — Fever. —
Farewell, Sardinia.
FROM Aritzo, the railway ascends the valley as far as Sorgono,
the terminus, passing the station for Tonara, a picturesque
village like Aritzo, in a similar position on the slopes of the Gennar-
gentu, but nearer the summit.
The road affords a far pleasanter way of travelling than the
railway, however, and was the route by which I elected to go from
Aritzo to Desulo.
The upper portion of the valley is said to be the very district first
occupied by the Barbaracini in the days of the Vandal king.
On the road, we pass some travellers from Busaclii on the Tirso,.
travelling in antique cars with spokeless wheels, like those used by the
Romans. The vehicles are laden with homespun stuffs, which are
being taken to the south for sale.
Then come some women of Atzara, a village on the hills opposite
Desulo. Their dress is a genuine relic of past centuries, for, like all
the natives of these mountain hamlets, they take pride in adhering ta
367
368 THE forgottp:n isles.
the picturesque costumes of ancient days. Sardinia has about two
hundred villages, and each one of these has its own distinctive dress,
but in no district is the variety so marked as in the Barbagia.
The women of Dorgali, a township on the east coast, are dressed
like Albanians, with narrow, stiff petticoats, and bodices with long
sleeves, tight from shoulder to elbow, but puffed on the forearm, with
slashes to show the white chemise underneath, and buttoning round
the wrist Their head-dress is of thick, bright-coloured cloth, which
enframes the face and falls in folds over the shoulders.
In the Nuoro, as at Osilo, the women are distinguished by a head-
dress which would give them the appearance of nuns, were it not for
the great richness of their costume.
The strangest attire of all is that worn by the women of Tortoli,
which is characterised by a remarkably low-cut bodice, with a chain
passing under the chin to hold in place the veil covering the head.
Beautiful and even magnificent as the Sardinian dresses are, they
are unlike the dresses of more civilised regions, in being made strictly
on natural principles. The bodice is evenly laced at the back, giving
support to the spine from the waist to the level of the shoulders, but
the edge curves downward from the shoulder blades, so as to come
round the front below the breasts, which are thus supported but not
compressed, and are covered by a slight chemise, which hides them
without concealing their form.
From this cause, the women of Sardinia have been celebrated from
of old for their busts, and such a thing as a mother being unable
to nurse her child is hardly known in the island.
But to return to the road to Desulo and the nut trees of the
valley of Iscra. After two hours' riding, we reach a gorge, at the
bottom of which a torrent hurtles down, in the shadow of century-old
oaks and chestnuts, above which we see the white church of the town-
ship, displaying as many cupolas as a mosque. Thick forests descend
in dark cascades down the steep slopes, on which two-thirds of the
village are built. Paths wind upwards in the folds of the mountain,
skirting precipices and climbing rocks. Mountaineers follow these
perilous ways, holding their horses by the bridle. The men have an
Women of Atzara.
24
DESULO. 371
austere appearance suited to the asperity of the landscape, and the
head-dresses of some of the women resemble knights' helmets. As
we ascend, flocks and herds led by shepherds pass us on the way
downward, raising clouds of dust as they go. We hear the bleating of
sheep, the tinkling of bells, the barking of dogs, and the shouts of the
shepherds. Winter is nigh at hand, and the flocks are descending to
the Campidano, to return to the mountains with the first swallows
in spring.
We soon enter the winding streets of Desulo, and my young
companion, the Frenchman from Belvi, guides me to a house, where
our arrival is expected. The head of the family receives us with
great cordiality, and tells us that we must consider ourselves in
our own house. Such was his polite form of words, at least, and
I must admit it was no empty phrase ; for his hospitality was most
generous.
The houses of Desulo are higher than those of Aritzo, but the
village is a similar congeries of narrow alleys with overhanging
balconies. Almost everywhere, wooden shingles replace the roof-
tiles, which are frequently cracked by the frost, the village being
situated some 2,000 feet above the sea.
The mornings at Desulo are delightful,-— fresh, bright, and in-
vigorating. Looking from the window, one sees a whole panorama
of mountain, forest, valley, and diaphanous distances, veiled in mist,
through which the sunlight strikes on a point of colour, such as a
scarlet bodice, the peltry of a mastrucca, or the horns of the oxen
drawing a country cart.
Hooded women hurry along in the shadow of the walls to early
mass, and yonder on the uplands the woods are bathed in wave upon
wave of golden light and purple shadow, which spread down to the
valleys, till the whole country stands revealed in the joyous bright-
ness of the new day.
Like all primitive mountain folk, the Sardinians, especially those
of the Barbagia, are fond of expressing themselves in poetry. Even
the arrival of two strangers like myself and the Frenchman was
made the theme for an improvisation, not of great merit perhaps,
i72
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
but interesting as evidence of the poetic faculty of the people.
This facility for utilising even the most homely occurrences as a fit
subject for versification is only found nowadays in out-of-the-way
corners like Sardinia or the Isle of Skye. In the latter, I knew
a certain herdsman with a great local reputation as a bard, who
composed quite a long and remarkable song about the arrival of a
new bull.
Sitting of an evening by the warm hearth of my host at
Desulo, while the women spun their wool and the humming of
the wheel made a cosy accompaniment to the recitations, I heard
many ancient verses, some of which were marked by great poetical
feeling. Such was the following sonnet by the famous Sardinian
poet Madao : —
De sa rosa impares humana bellesa
Tantu presumida, superba et altera ;
In ipsa ti mira, in ipsa considera
De Bellas retractile figura e primisa.
O cantu innamorat cun sa gentilesa,
Su tempus chi dtirat, una rosa vera !
Ipsa sola regnat in sa primavera,
Inter sosflores^ una pompa et gran-
desa.
Pero 0 disinganmc pro dogn' hermo-
sura I
Sa bella re7iia mudamenti narat,
Chi, o bellesa umana, sed de pagtt
dura ;
Sa caduca sua purpura e cultura
Su breve regnare florida imparat
CKhas in d'una die pompa et sepul-
tura.
Go learn of the rose, O beauty of youth,
So lofty, so presumptuous, and so proud ;
An image of thee her petals enshroud ;
Go, see thyself in a mirror of truth.
What charm in her form, what love in her
face ;
The while she's spared by Time's uncertain
ruth,
Sole queen of the springtide, princess of
youth,
Amid her flowers she reigns by beauty's
grace.
Alas ! too soon, she gives all beauty pause,.
And mutely tells that all must pass away,
That neither she nor maidens fair may stay.
Bereft of love and life by nature's laws,
Her fading tints and falling petals say
That beauty rules and dies in one brief day.
The sentiment is quite that of George Herbert ; trite, maybe, but
J
The Church of San Mauro.
FURIA-FURIA,
37S
charmingly expressed in the original tongue. And here, perhaps, the
observation may most aptly be made, that of all the dialects of Latin
origin, Sardinian most nearly resembles the language spoken by
the Romans ; not in the grammar, which differs greatly, but in the
words themselves, of which over five hundred are absolutely identical.
So many phrases are common to both languages, that some poets
have written entire poems, which can be read either as Latin or
as Sardinian. Curiously enough some Greek expressions have also
been left by the Byzantines or the ancient Greek colonists, and there
are a few words presenting no affinity to any existing European
language, probably a relic of the tongue spoken by the aboriginal
inhabitants.
The oldest Sardinian poems were inspired by Biblical subjects,
and treat of the Passion of Christ or the legends of the saints. They
were mostly the work of priests and monks. The common people
still sing old hymns to Saint Antiocus and Saint George, and a
versified prayer for rain, which is used once a year at processions in
the height of the dry season.
Love is naturally the favourite theme of the profane poetry,
which generally takes the form of the laments of jealousy or
unrequited affection.
One evening at Desulo, I was regaled with the national dish, to
wit, sucking pig, without which no banquet or public or private
festivity is considered complete. It is roasted in a peculiar manner,
called furia-furia^ which demands great skill on the part of the
operator.
The animal is fixed on a prong and held quite close to the fire
by an old woman, who turns it rapidly, so that all the sides are equally
cooked. The process is very rapid, and the result is delicious.
The shepherds have the reputation of being the best roasters
in the furia-furia manner. They also cook the pig by placing it
in a hole in the ground, wrapped in branches and leaves, under a
layer of earth which is stamped down, and a fire then kindled on
the top.
It is said that this method was invented by pig-stealers, and that
2,j6 THE _FORGOTTEN ISLES.
the owner has often been known to come and warm himself at the
very fire beneath which his stolen animal was being surreptitiously
roasted.
On great occasions the cookery is more complicated. A bullock
is disembowelled, and stuffed with a sheep also eviscerated ; and
the sheep in turn is made the receptacle of a sucking pig. The
operation of roasting this hybrid joint lasts the whole day, and often
longer.
From Desulo it is an easy walk to Sorgono, the terminus of the
railway, whence a path through the oak woods leads to San Mauro,
a church surrounded by a few huts and two or three houses, on the
slope of a wooded hill.
It is at San Mauro that the most important of the three great
fairs of Sardinia is held annually in May. During the elevation
at mass on the first day of the fair, a wheel hung with little bells is
set in motion, and is the signal for a prodigious clamour of crackers,
squibs, and guns, while at the same time a sort of parade of all the
oxen and horses takes place before the porch. The oxen have their
horns decorated with oranges, ribbons, little mirrors, and garlands of
flowers, while round their necks are hung rosaries, scapulars, and
charms. The horses bear saddles of bright-coloured velvet
embroidered in arabesque, and their manes and tails are plaited.
Immediately after mass there is a procession, led by the best
horseman in the district, who unfurls the banner of San Mauro.
He compels his horse to go backwards, and from time to time to
kneel down. The decorated oxen follow the procession, which makes
the round of the church, the men being bareheaded, with their
Phrygian caps on their shoulders.
The introduction of oxen into processions is a custom common
to several villages. At Quartu they lead the way, and sometimes
there are as many as two hundred yoke, with their skins rendered
lustrous for the occasion, all wearing magnificent housings, gaily
decked out with tinsel, tiny mirrors, coloured paper, and woollen
cloths.
Processions in Sardinia serve the purpose of district agricultural
A Booth at the Fair of San Mauro.
THE FAIR OF SAN MAURO.
379
competitions, and proprietors emulate each other in showing the finest
and most carefully tended beasts.
At some of these festivities it is customary to choose a patronesa,
or, in Sardinian dialect, sa guardiana — generally a young girl, like
the " May Queen " in Old
English sports. She has
the privilege of decorating
the statue of the saint to
be carried in the pro-
cession. Before the feast-
day she goes round to all
the houses of the village,
carrying a statuette of the
saint, in order to collect
offerings. She offers the
statuette to be kissed, and
holds out a bag for the
offering. She is accom-
panied by a man carrying
a sack for the contributions
of the poor, which are
always gifts in kind, gene-
rally consisting of corn.
The office of patronesa
cannon be held by the
same girl two years in
succession.
The church of San
Mauro and the surrounding
houses are deserted all the
year round, except in May,
when not only Sardinians flock thither from all parts of the island,
but Sicilians come to the fair to buy horses, especially the wild breed
from the plateau of the Giarra.
The booths then present a unique opportunity for studying the
A Seller of Homespun.
380 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
different types of peasantry — women from Busachi with their home-
spun, men of Gavoi and Santo Liissurgio, renowned as forgers of bits
and spurs, people of Desulesi with wooden utensils {talleri), peasants
from Mihs with great carts piled with oranges, and merchants from
Oristano and Solarussa, vendors of varnaccia, a local white wine much
esteemed in Sardinia.
Many come as pilgrims in fulfilment of vows made during illness or
other times of misfortune, bringing all kinds of ex-voto offerings, in the
form of waxen arms and legs, or tresses of hair. Many of the children
again are dressed in monastic habits, being dedicated to this or that
order in tender years, and wearing the Capuchin, Dominican, or
Franciscan dress until they are eight or ten years old. Children thus
attired may be met even in the streets of Cagliari.
Among other strange customs, those connected with marriage
deserve mention. Not the young man himself, but the young man's
father, makes the proposal for a girl's hand. Choosing a fine day, he
presents himself at the house of the mafden's parents, and thus
addresses the father : —
" I am growing old, and to charm and console my old age, I seek
a dove of immaculate whitene.'^.s, which is hidden, I fancy, in the house
which I have just entered."
The father makes a feint of not understanding the allusion, and
replies that there is no dove in his house, that she must be at some
neighbour's, or perhaps in the depth of the wood. After a long argu-
ment, the girl's parent goes into another room and returns with the
oldest of the women, saying, " Is this the dove you want ? "
Finally, after the suitor has been introduced to all the women, the
father brings out the girl whom he has known all along to be the one
meant. It is the maiden's part to resist to the uttermost, but at last
she does appear, and the young man's father calls out, " Yes ! that is
the white dove I was looking for ! "
Dove is the prettiest but not the invariable figure of speech used at
these wooings by proxy. Often the girl is designated as a filly, a
lamb, or even a goat.
After the choice has been made, the girl withdraws, and the
A SARDINIAN MARRIAGE. 38 1
two fathers discuss matters and fix a day for the exchange of
presents.
On that day the father, dressed in his best, goes with great cere-
mony to the house of the bride-elect, followed by his friends, called
for that occasion, paralimpos. The procession halts before the
house, and the father knocks at the door ; but no answer comes
until, after persistent rapping, a voice calls out, " What do you
want ? " whereupon the paralimpos make answer in chorus, " Honour
and virtue."
The door is then opened, the host making excuses that he did not
hear the first knocks, and the company enters. Th^ paralimpos spread
out the young man's father's presents, and the girl's parents display
their own gifts. The evening concludes with a banquet, which is not
attended, however, by the young couple. A week before the celebra-
tion of the marriage, a procession is organised to fetch the furniture
to the new home, headed by the prettiest girl in the village, carrying
on an embroidered cushion the pitcher, venerated in all Sardinian
households, with which the bride will draw water for the first time on
her wedding day. The rear of the procession is always brought up
by a donkey, carrying the hand-mill for grinding corn. The animal is
richly housed, and wears gay trappings of scarlet and gold, with bells
round his neck, and often a crown of myrtle on his head.
It is the custom for the bridegroom to carry into the house the
first mattress for the nuptial couch. His friends carrying other
mattresses bar the way, and then ensues a battle royal, generally
more amusing for the spectators than the chief actor, who usually
ends by being buried beneath a mass of bedding.
On the wedding day, the parish priest and the paralimpos go to
fetch the bride from her parents' house. As soon as she sees them
coming, she falls in tears at her mother's feet and implores her
blessing.
The mother consoles the girl, lays her hands on her head, and
confides her to the priest. The bridegroom, with the priest of his own
parish, meanwhile goes to the church to await the bride. After the
religious ceremony, the civil contract is signed before the syndic, and
382 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
the wedding party then adjourns to a banquet, at which the newly
married eat out of the same plate, with the same spoon.
The bride, mounted on a white horse, is then escorted to her new
home, on the threshold of which she is met by her mother-in-law, who
greets her with outstretched arms, and offers her an Etruscan vase, in
which she throws grains of corn.
In the evening there is another banquet, followed by a dance.
All this celebration entails much expense ; hence, it comes about
that, among the poor, the young couple live together from the time of
their betrothal, and only get married when they are able to afford it.
At Cagliari, as in Minorca, courtship is frequently conducted from
a balcony, and the young man is only received by the girl's family
after the date for the marriage has been fixed.
Death in Sardinia, as in Corsica, is made the occasion in certain
villages for dramatic scenes.
At Samugheo, a noted village near the castle of Medusa, the
custom of " waking " the dead is still observed. An attitadora, or
keener, is hired for the occasion, and mourns all night by the side of
the body, surrounded by the family. Occasionally she tears her hair
and scratches her face till the blood flows, and then resumes her dirge,
certain verses of which are accompanied by the family in chorus.
Relatives never follow a funeral to the cemetery. Even at
Cagliari this pious office is fulfilled by friends, who, on their return,
announce the accomplishment of the burial to the family by the
•words " Faiddi coraggio ! " (*' Have courage ! ").
The birth of a firstborn is also accompanied by quaint customs.
Day and night for a week there is nothing but feasting and rejoicing
in the house, often in the very room of the young mother. As soon
as one party of visitors goes, it is replaced by another, and the
unfortunate father, in entertaining his guests, has scarcely time to
snatch a wink of sleep.
In some villages of the Campidano, it is considered the proper
thing for the husband to go to bed instead of his wife, and, in her
name, to receive the presents and congratulations of friends and
relations. Occasionally both father and mother receive their guests in
AN AGILE THIEF.
385
the birth chamber, and, as at their wedding, eat out of the same plate
with the one spoon.
To return to Desulo, the most
charming walk in the neighbour-
hood is that to the alpine village
of Tonara, past the waterfall
called the Fontana di Monstgnore,
and some picturesque mills, half-
hidden, like hermitages, in the
recesses of the rocks.
From Tonara, I visited Gadoni,
famed for its goat cheese, and its
embroidered linen spun by the
women of the village, who also
make woollen and cotton coverlets;
the former called fressadas or
burraSy the latter called fanugas,
and spun in strange patterns of
animals and flowers.
Not far off is the river Flu-
mendosa, noted equally for trout
and for eels. It is spanned by
a singular bridge made of tree
trunks resting on three natural
piers of rock, the tops of which
approach each other so as to form
segments of arches, through which
fall three cascades.
It is said that a thief who had
just " annexed " a cow, and was
peacefully engaged in cutting it up
on this spot, was surprised by the
carabinieri in hot pursuit, and,
throwing a quarter of the animal over his shoulder, cleared the river
in three leaps of from twelve to fifteen feet, jumping from rock to
25
Man of the East Coast.
386 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
rock, there being at that time neither trunks nor planks across
the stream.
The mountains on their eastern side descend in abrupt escarp-
ments, while towards the west the slope is long and gradual. The
country at their feet is clothed in virgin forest, and the valleys
running up between the high precipices are the wildest in Sardinia.
Foaming waterfalls hang like white beards from the lips of the
crevasses, and carrion crows circle over the lofty summits. Wildly
beautiful as it is, the entire region is cursed by fever, which yearly
decimates the scanty population of the scattered villages.
There is only one natural harbour along the east coast, the Gulf
of Orosei, on which is situated the small seaport of the same name,
the Cedrinus of the ancients, where the Cagliari steamers call once a
week. The Golfo di Terranova in the north, which looks on the map
as if it would be a good harbour, is sown with reefs, and the Golfo
di Tortoli in the south, is far too small. There are several islands
in the Gulf of Terranova, one of which,- Tavolara, was at the
beginning of the century a kind of independent kingdom. A
shepherd of the Isola della Maddalena, named Giuseppe, having
fallen out with the law officers, who would not let him live quietly
in a state of bigamy, took possession of the uninhabited island and
settled one of his wives there, doubtless in the hope of founding a
dynasty. The other he established on the desert islet of Santa Maria,
north of the Isola della Maddalena, where he used often to visit her.
This shepherd was called in derision, the king of Tavolara ; but he
became very rich, and his son and successor on the throne continued
the family. It was a model monarchy, the throne being unshakable,
since it consisted of rock, and the subjects never guilty of rebellion,
since they were goats.
A journey along the east coast is, however, not to be undertaken
lightly. The kidnapping of Mr. Charles Wood by brigands, who
demanded a ransom of £\,2QO, was an event too recent to be any
encouragement to explore this desolate region, where the people are few
and far between and quite uncertain in the manner of their welcome.
The fear of brigands alone would not have deterred me from
FEVER,
387
making the venture, but I felt that 1 was in for an attack of
fever. A weariness of wandering grew upon me, my head felt
as if bound by a circle of iron,
and I had pains in all my
limbs. To be utterly alone in
such a condition seems to increase
one's ailments, and I returned to
Desulo.
My entertainer was delighted
to see that I had kept my promise
of not leaving the Barbagia with-
out visiting him once more, and
said that I had just come in time
to take part in a domestic fes-
tivity to celebrate the arrival of
some relatives from Sar-
rule. Nevertheless, he was
anxious at my pallor and
generally worn-out aspect,
and after urging me to
accept his hospitalit>^.for ;
a few days, as the weather
was bitter and I looked
as if I needed rest, finally
advised me to lose no time
in returning to Cagliari.
The next day found
me in bed at the Ristor-
ante de la E seal a di ferru^
in the capital, and the
doctor told me I was
suffering from a sharp
bout of malarial fever.
Strong remedies averted any danger, but for over a week I could do
nothing but lie in bed and listlessly watch the boats rocking in the gulf
Woman of Sarrule.
388 THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
I was reluctantly compelled to forego a projected visit to the
mining district, and also a hunting party organised in my honour by
M. Georges Chapelle, who was unremitting in his attentions during
my illness.
The Sardinians, who, like all islanders, are deeply attached to
their country, greatly deprecate any one speaking of the unhealthiness
of the island. They themselves naturally suffer less from fever than
strangers, who dare not even breathe the air of certain districts in
summer, lest they fall ill and die. In the middle of June, the landed
proprietors of the Campidano fly from the country, and take refuge
in the towns, while the care with which even peasants wrap them-
selves up show how they dread the intemperia.
Many of the Sardinian proverbs refer to the fever for instance :—
Sa frehbe terziaiia no?i est toccu de The tertian fever does not make the ^^/
campana. passing bell ring.
Sa f?'ebbe aitunzale o est longa 0 est The autumn fever is either long or
mortale. mortal.'
Sa frehbe senza sidis, malu signale. Fever without thirst is a bad sign.
Sa frebbe atterat finza stc leo?te. Fever prostrates even the lion.
As soon as I was out of danger, my doctor told me to leave
Sardinia immediately. "Go away," said he, "go away. At this
time of the year the island is poisoned ; but in April and May you
can come back, and go wherever your fancy leads you."
I had no resource but to do as he bade me, and early one morning
found myself in the train speeding back to the north. I had one
brief glimpse of the rock, on which stands the dismantled castle of
Ugolino ; crossed the Campidano ; saw from afar the mountains of
Iglesias, " the flower of the world " ; perceived the lagoons of Oristano
glimmering in the sun ; and watched the vapours rising to the sky
and obscuring the hills like a pale winding-sheet.
For a brief moment, I saw a player of the launedda leaning
against the trunk of a tree, and heard the flute-like notes, like the
warbling of a lark. But at the same moment a deep, rough, groaning
sound spoilt the melody. Did it come from the marshes of the
THE LAST OF SARDINIA.
389
Campidano Maggiorc, which
we were passing and which
sometimes make sounds like
the lowing of bulls? I do
not know. The train carried
me on.
But the joyous notes of
the flute, broken by a melan-
choly cry, appeared to me
typical of the whole of this
Tyrrhenian Isle, at once
beautiful and accursed. But
for long after I quitted its
shores, I still felt as if I had
been travelling through time
as well as space, and had
returned from a mediaeval
pilgrimage through fabulous
lands, where wild men and
robber-bands alternated with
mild-visaged chatelaines and
chaste madonnas.
The civilisation of Sar-
dinia is merely a gloss of
officialism. Under the veneer
of the modern state is still
hidden the old oak of mediae-
valism. The Church has more
influence than the law, and
old custom is even more potent
than the Church.
Looking back upon my
journey, it seemed to me as
if I had been turning the pages of a palimpsest, where the old
Young Maa of.Sarrule.
;90
THE FORGOTTEN ISLES.
heathen record is still visible beneath the miniatures and illuminated
script, penned by some visionary monk in the vari-coloured hues of
a stained-glass window.
Quaint and gorgeous costumes, strange manners, remote moun-
tain solitudes, and unknown villages, all seemed to me like the
memory of a day that is no more.
-jK^
A' Player of the Launedda.
UNIVERSITY OF
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